


The Most Dangerous Game

by Knightfall1138



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knightfall1138/pseuds/Knightfall1138
Summary: In just over a decade: Shae Vizla, a Mandalorian mercenary, will play a key role in an Imperial operation that becomes known throughout the galaxy as the Sacking of Coruscant. For now, she's a bounty hunter-for-hire, chasing down anyone who will net her the biggest payday. But during one such hunt, things go horribly wrong, leaving her stranded on the ruined world of Taris.
Kudos: 2





	1. Waiting in the Blind

_A long time ago in a galaxy far,_

_far away..._

**[3,667 BBY – Fourteen Years Before the Treaty of Coruscant]**

" _Killing a Jedi is two parts concentration, one part intimidation, and three parts evisceration—the order of application is left completely to the hunter in this case. The universe is chaos, after all, and every fight with a Jedi will differ from the next and the last. Take it from me,"_ said the hologram, hefting a crate into view. He tilted it slightly so that the viewer might see its contents.

The hologram grinned. The crate was full of lightsabers. _"I've met more than a few of them in my travels."_

Shae Vizla smiled along with the hologram, and began the process of taking apart her rifle for the third time that night. It had been some time since she'd required the use of one, and she far preferred the use of the twin blaster pistols at her hips during the regular course of her work, but circumstances had changed in a hurry. The "up close and personal" option wasn't going to be viable in the near future.

She ejected the power pack, unhooked the barrel, removed the scope, and listened to the rifle power down when she carefully, _carefully_ unplugged the cell. The weapon became lifeless in her hands... and in under half a minute if the timer on her data-gauntlet was to be trusted.

Not bad. Could be better.

 _"The notion that a Jedi can't be killed is a widespread one. Talk to the right person on the right planet and some will tell you that the Jedi are invincible. Some will say they're immortal. Others will compare them to gods—or claim that they_ are _gods."_ The hologram shook his head. _"If find yourself buying into that particular notion, put it out of your head at your earliest convenience. Because I'm telling you right now, with this unwieldy pile of lightsabers as my proof..."_

He leaned in. _"Killing a god isn't as hard as you think."_

Shae put the holodevice to sleep and reassembled the sniper rifle. She took note of the timer, _fourteen seconds_ , and shut down her gauntlet, as well. With everything switched off, she found herself in pitch blackness. Intentional, of course. She had spent most of the afternoon making sure every window, every crack, every doorway, every broken seam... every breach made by time, the elements, or blasterfire, all of it was sealed so that no light could get in or out of the apartment.

Only a standard day ago, she had been reclining in her favorite seat in The Slippery Slopes Cantina on Nar Shaddaa, drinking a glass of dakaar juice and wondering if the new contract in her queue would be worth looking into. Now she was navigating a darkened room with lengths of thread she had torn from a broken couch in the corner and tethered to key locations in the apartment. The thread she had tied knots into led her to the living room window, which she had covered with a tattered comforter.

Pulling away a corner of the comforter from the window allowed a dim beam of moonlight into the apartment, faintly illuminating the decay inside like a ghostly afterimage. Her temporary lodging might have been a little more _upscale_ in its prime, but words like that held no meaning at all on a planet that had been dead for a little over three hundred years.

Taris had most definitely seen better days—but, again, circumstances can change in a hurry.

Looking out through the opening gave her an unobstructed view of a vast expanse of collapsed and mangled skyscrapers that stretched out into a broken horizon. Thin columns of toxic mist spewed from chasms that led deep into the ground, where ancient fuel lines and chemical deposits had created a volatile cocktail that made much of the former ecuminopolis uninhabitable. Even though the sector in which Shae was currently holed up was one of the safer parts of the world, she could still smell fumes like sulfur pressing their way into the apartment, making her nauseous if she took in more than easy breaths.

Aside from the mist, which climbed free of the endless wreckage to join the layer of perpetual fog that nearly enveloped Taris's upper troposphere, nothing else moved. Lights got lighter and shadows grew deeper as the moon passed somewhere overhead, but otherwise: nothing.

 _Good_ , she said to herself. _I still have time._

Replacing the corner of the comforter brought the pitch darkness back into the apartment. Shae used the knotted thread to find her way back to the middle of the living room, where she had unpacked all of her worldly possessions... which really wasn't all that much.

She checked them all off in her mind... The N-415 sniper rifle. A half-box of ration bars, which might last her three days if she was strict about it. A water canteen, about a day's worth if she didn't travel. Her twin D-88 blaster pistols. A holoprojector. Her data-gauntlet. And, finally, her utility belt, which was mostly lined with power packs for the pistols but had two more compartments for a commlink and a grappling spike launcher.

Not much at all, even by her most relaxed standards. Then again she wouldn't even be on Taris if she'd had a choice in the matter. This was supposed to be just another hunt for just another bounty, and not even a high profile one. It was going to be her last hunt of the year before returning home in time for summer, _ideally_ with a more-than-decent credit stash to her name, and this particular bounty was _ideally_ going to take care of the fuel costs and equipment maintenance, nothing more.

Going for the easy money, which she had long ago promised herself she would never do, led her into taking a contract without being properly prepared, which was yet another promise she had broken over the course of this week.

Being on Taris with three guns and scant rations, that should've never happened. But here she was.

"Here I am," she whispered, and toggled the holoemitter to continue playing the recording.

The image of a man with short-cropped hair wearing an old Imperial uniform flickered back into existence, throwing blue light in all directions. Just enough for Shae to see her supplies strewn upon the ground. She picked up the sniper rifle and contemplated taking it apart again.

 _"The thing about gods is that they have rules,"_ said the hologram. _"Jedi have rules. If there is one lesson you take away from these recordings, this is the one to take note of, boys and girls. If you know the rules, you can break them. A Jedi can't. You find that line that they won't cross, it might as well be a sheer cliff to them. That cliff is where you find your advantage..."_

Shae hit the timer on her data-gauntlet and began to break down the rifle.

 _"And after that... it's only a matter of reaching out, taking them by the shoulder and, calmly, pushing them over it."_ The image of the man chuckled under his breath. _"And let me tell you: nothing in this galaxy falls quite like a Jedi. You really have to see it for yourself to appreciate the spectacle of it all."_ He tucked his hands behind his back and nodded to his potential audience. _"My name is Lieutenant Jaq Rand of Darth Revan's Sith Empire, and this is the end of instruction one. Good luck... and keep counting those cards."_

The hologram faded away, taking the light with it just as Shae was finished reassembling the rifle. The timer on her gauntlet read thirteen seconds.

A few feet away, another light pulsed through the darkness. Her commlink had turned itself on in the presence of a signal. She stared at it, knowing full well what that meant. Her grip on the rifle grew tight enough that her fingers ran cold, and her heart pulsed in anticipation of what she would hear.

The filter had been turned off, so the signal came straight through the comm. Light static, waxing and waning, and then, _"Come out, Shae,"_ a voice whispered, and heavy breathing followed. _"Come out, come out wherever you are..."_

A slow exhale through her nose calmed her nerves. Once again she shut down all of her devices and carefully followed the knotted thread back to the window. As quickly as she dared, she pulled back a corner of the comforter, bringing the ruined landscape of Taris back into view. This time, down between the rubble and the mist, she saw things moving... and they were moving in her direction.

 _"Come out, Shae! Come out!"_ the voice hissed. _"It's time for you to die now!"_

Shae backed away from the window and went for the rifle.


	2. Just Another Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You can run, but you'll only die tired."_
> 
> -Boba Fett (25 ABY)

One week before being marooned on Taris, Shae knelt on the roof of the Civic Services Building in Level 223 on Coruscant and peered through her macrobinoculars one more time. She had never seen someone run so fast in all her life.

On the nearest walkway just below her perch, a bald young man with a very noticeable tattoo running the length of his scalp was sprinting away from her, very likely heading towards the nearest transit hub. It was all she needed to see; her presence on the Republic capital world had been compromised. She sighed and apathetically returned the binoculars to their compartment on her pack.

This was going to be a long day.

Later, she would learn that an acquaintance of her employer had found out about the bounty contract and been secretly kept Shae's mark updated with her current whereabouts. She would react negatively upon hearing the news. But for now: she stood, pushed her bright red hair off of her face, and slipped her Mando UIY-2249 tactical helmet over her head. The helmet's HUD immediately came to life, giving her what little tactical information there was to be had from her perch. Altitude, temperature, wind speed, armor durability, and the ammo count of the twin blasters at her hips lit up faintly at the edges of her visor.

"Time to go to work," she said. At times like this, when everything was going wrong, she was grateful for her Mandalorian sensibilities and absolute inability to lose her cool under stress... but she was also grateful for her jetpack.

Taking a widened stance and shifting around in her armor, she pressed the button on her left glove to prime and ignite her jetpack. In a matter of seconds, she was rocketing over the congested walkways and platforms of Level 223. The deeper you went in Coruscant, the tougher it was to surprise the average pedestrian, so a woman in Mandalorian armor riding a jetpack did little to turn up any curious eyes in this part of the city.

At the Shilo Street Junction, where pedestrian traffic intersected with a speeders-only road, Shae's HUD gave her a temperature warning for her pack. Toggling the controls on her glove, she eased herself down near the junction to cool her jets, all the while scanning the crowds for any sign of her mark.

"HUD, ping Cander," Shae said and her helmet responded with the chime of an opened channel. "You better not be sleeping. Stars, you better not be—"

 _"Hello, Shae,"_ Cander replied through the helmet's comm, clearing his throat. _"To what do I owe this honor?"_

"Don't even start that," she sighed and kicked into a sprint down the walkway. "I need you to do me a favor."

 _"Anything, dearest sibling. I'll just log this one away with the others."_ Shae could hear Cander moving through the house, probably heading to his personal terminal, per standard procedure. _"What do you need?"_

"One second..." Shae caught sight of her mark's bald head as he pushed his way into the Lost Bek Cantina, one of the more bustling dives on this level. Crowded enough to effectively hide someone who didn't want to be found, or to act as a nice cover for an escape. This far down, there was never just one exit to a business, which was why she had been hoping to take her mark by surprise. "In pursuit here."

 _"Hey, you called me."_ She could tell Cander was speaking through a very demeaning grin.

"I know that!"

_"I walked clear across the room to get to my terminal, and this is how you repay my token—"_

"Cander, stop yourself for one moment." Shae jogged into the Lost Bek Cantina, quickly rounding the crowds and brandishing her blaster at anyone a little too slow to clear out of her path. "You still have my contact list?"

_"I do."_

"I need you to get a hold of my current employer and tell him— _Get out of the way!_ " Shae nearly had to knock an inebriated Aqualish on his snout when he stumbled directly in front of her. She shoved him, but his wide boots kept him upright and reaching for his next drink.

_"Tell employer to get out of the way. All right, I'll get back to you."_

"Cander, this is not the time!" Past the bar, Shae was nearly overwhelmed by pulsing lights, droning music, and the thick aroma of death sticks suspended in unusually humid air. She adjusted the filter on her visor a few different ways so she could actually make out the faces in the room, and went about tracking down her tattooed mark. "I need you to contact my employer and let him know that he has a leak."

A few seconds of silence. _"Like... in his refresher?"_

"What?" Shae was dumbstruck by the response, but then remembered what time it was on Vulta. "Have you started drinking already?"

Cander chuckled through the comm. _"I wouldn't... I... I don't know."_ He sniffed. _"Yeah, I have. Basically."_

"You better sober up real kriffing quick, Cander. I need you to call my high-paying employer and let him know he has an information leak in his organization. My mark started running before he even saw me."

 _"Okay, okay, okay."_ Cander took a deep breath, exhaled, then came a sound like he had just slapped himself awake. _"Okay, I'm calling Jarvin Trell, correct?"_

"Correct. There were only two people in the meeting with us, so he won't have to look far."

 _"Right, I'll get on it straight away,"_ he said. _"I'll also keep an eye on the authority feeds. What level are you on?"_

"Two twenty-three. Just chased him into the Lost Bek Cantina."

Shae could hear him typing. _"Okay, Shae, I'll get back to you."_

"Thanks." The channel closed. That was what she loved most about her brother and frequent partner in the bounty hunting game: no matter the time of day or state of mind, he always got reliable as quickly as possible.

 _Usually_ , she amended. There was that time on Balmorra...

The cantina patrons suddenly jumped to their feet and cheered wildly at the enlarged image of a swoop race, which took up most of the back wall. Shae seemed to remember Cander telling her about a big race happening sometime this week on Telos. The racer from Coruscant must have taken the lead. Unfortunate, because now the place was a Geonosian hive of motion, which made it all the more difficult to pick her man out of the crowd.

They chanted the racer's name with a kind of fervor that made the audio receptors inside Shae's helmet crackle. _"JANAR! JANAR! JANAR!"_

"Great." She elbowed through the crowd of patrons, but there was too much motion. She couldn't even make out the faces immediately in front of her before they were absorbed back into the mob. Show of force wouldn't amount to much here, and there was no time for anything short of that.

Unless...

"HUD, ping Cander."

The channel opened immediately. _"What do you need, Shae?"_

"I'm stuck in the middle of that cantina I mentioned earlier, can you—"

_"You're gonna have to speak up, sis, I can barely hear you."_

Shae was nearly shouting now. "I'm in the cantina! There's a massive crowd here watching a swoop race on the HoloNet."

A flurry of curses came back to her. _"The kriffing Telos Cup Series is on right now? It wasn't supposed to be on for another three hours! What the—"_

"Cander, I need to know the name of the racer from Coruscant. People are chanting the name Janar."

_"That would be Oka Janar. He's the favorite this year. Born on Level Thirteen-Thirteen, so almost everyone below the upper crust considers him a hometown hero. Personally, I have money riding on Lykus Brejik, but if they're cheering for Janar, that means I'm probably screwed out of—"_

Shae closed the channel and pulled off her helmet. Stepping up onto a bar stool, she took in a deep breath and bellowed, _"LISTEN UP, EVERYONE!"_

Minus the noise coming from the holo, everyone stopped their cheering and peeled their eyes and infrared receptors away from the race.

Hopefully this would work. "I'm looking for a bald-headed scoundrel that calls himself Ular Thrask." She was immediately met with some heckling and flying liquor bottles, but she soldiered on. "I just got back from the bookies, and this Thrask fella just went and placed the biggest bet I've ever seen against our man Oka!"

In almost comedic fashion, the entire room gasped at once. A Dug at the back of the room cursed, _"Achootah!"_

"I'm looking for Thrask to teach him that he should take those bets offworld where they belong... and maybe to send him that way in a leaky spacesuit. Now, where is that nerf-herder!"

A muscle-bound Trandoshan roared into the room, _"WHERE IS HE!"_ The entire cantina was once again whipped into a frenzy, but this one was working in Shae's favor, as every native Coruscanti in the place began scanning the crowd for her mark, Ular Thrask.

"Get 'im!"

"I just saw Thrask, that Huttslime! I just saw him!"

"Find him so we can throw his corpse off the platform! Let the guys on Thirteen-Thirteen get a look at him!"

It was only a matter of seconds before a Human was tossed out of the crowd, slamming into the bar area and knocking a few bottles onto the ground. The mob cheered and clumsily hugged each other.

Shae took a quick look at the man lying among the booze and broken glass. "That's not the guy," she told the patrons. "He has hair."

"That's Thrask!" a Twi'lek insisted. "I know the guy personally. Mardon Thrask."

Shae blinked. "I said _Ular_ Thrask, sir. _Ular_."

 _"Ohhh..."_ The mob dwelled on this revelation for a moment, then went back to searching.

The Twi'lek helped the unconscious man back onto his feet. "Sorry 'bout that, Mardon. Let's find you a chair with padding."

The whole situation was beginning to look hopeless. It would likely be another week before Shae could track Thrask down, and that was if the man didn't catch the first transport offworld. If she ever caught whoever leaked her presence to Thrask, she was going to get creatively violent on them. _Creatively_.

"Hey, wait!" said a Human near the holo, slurring his words a bit. "Thrashhk? That guy with a really bad tattoo on his shhcalp?"

"Where is he?" Shae asked, looking around.

It took a moment for the man to reply. "Yeah, he, ah... He jusht booked it out the, uh, back door when you got up on that there shhtool."

Shae immediately replaced her helmet and took off through the back door of the cantina.

"Let's go get 'im!" cried someone in the crowd. The entire cantina rose to their feet to follow Shae, but then someone pointed to the holo. "Wait! Janar's making a move!"

The back door slammed shut behind Shae, effectively muting the chanting that followed. _"JANAR! JANAR! JAN—!"_

She found herself in a long alleyway between buildings. Fortunately, there was only one way in or out. Toggling her jetpack, she flew to the mouth of the alley, covering the ground in a matter of seconds. At the end, she was met by another pedestrian-choked walkway, but this time she was fairly certain where her mark was heading.

The Landrak Transit Station was less than a block away. From there, Thrask could catch an aircab to just about anywhere in the sector. "That's where I'd go." Shae was still taking chances, but unless Cander could find something through his personal channels, she was going to catch Thrask at the transit station or not at all. Her jetpack temp read green on her visor, so she toggled another quick burst to get her over the walkway and onto the adjacent roof.

Sitting beneath one of the few beams of sunlight that managed to make its way this far down was the transit station. Speeders, aircabs, and shuttles dove in and out of a circular, open-air structure in an almost constant shuffle of motion. Taking a relaxing breath, she activated her jetpack again and aimed for the roof of the station. Just as she reached the top of her arcing path and began to descend, Cander's voice cut through the roar of her pack.

_"Shae!"_

"What!"

_"Just spotted a red flag at the Landrak Transit Station. A bald man with a tattoo just stole a man's credit chit."_

Shae exhaled. "Thank you, Cander. I'm descending on the place now."

Cander clicked his tongue. _"Literally?"_

"Literally."

_"All right, well hurry. He ran off in the direction of the cabs. You might still have a chance to grab him before he finds one."_

"Will do. Thanks, Cander."

_"No prob."_

She landed on the durasteel roof with a loud thud. A temp warning was flashing in the corner of her eye, so she began to run towards the cabs as fast as she could manage in her armor. _Please, be there! Be there, be there, be there!_ At the northern part of the station, she arrived at the aircab landing pads.

Barely even a moment afterwards, a cab lifted off and passed by overhead. Through the back window she could see a bald head, tattooed and shining with sweat in the scant sunlight. She could've marked the cab with a tracer dart, or called up Cander again to have him keep track of the cab as it made its rounds. But taking either of those methods left Thrask's capture to chance—and she didn't much care for such options.

Without even the slightest thought for the consequences, Shae aimed, locked, and fired her wrist-mounted grappling launcher.

_Oh, boy..._

The spike embedded itself onto the rear of the cab and, sensing the connection, the device went taut and began to reel her in. She was swept off her feet and pulled nearly a kilometer into the air before she could even react, the tether's failsafe along with the brace built into her armor the only things keeping her arm from being plucked out of its socket.

The aircab at once accelerated and ascended to Level 222, moving with calculated grace through the gap between the Czerka Corporation Interstellar Employment Building and the Jank'wray Apartment Complex and Casino—the latter of which granting Shae a moment of pause before the cab's unpredictable motions sent her spinning on her tether. The cityscape rotated into a nauseating blur of lights, darks and transient stars. Fighting through the nausea, she fired controlled bursts out of her jetpack to stop her spin and concentrated a little harder on reaching the cab.

They moved up to Level 220, then back down to 221 by the time Shae was finally able to get a grip on the cab's rear deflector pad, all the while trying to ignore that she was, on average, dangling a few kilometers over any kind of solid surface. She had never been afraid of heights, but the kind of heights one experienced on Coruscant was something else entirely.

When the aircab looked to be leveling out for a moment, Shae unhooked the grappling launcher from her wrist and attached it to a spot on her utility belt, all the while keeping a vice-like grip on the rear deflector pad that could have broken bone under different circumstances. She had barely felt the click of the launcher locking into its slot when the back window of the cab erupted into a fountain of broken glass and blasterfire.

Shae braced her feet on the rear deflector and let out some slack on the tether, allowing her to "stand" on the back of the cab, level with the ground. The curve of the vehicle's body shielded her from taking any direct fire, but that didn't stop Thrask from unloading an entire power pack at her cover.

In all the chaos, between roar of rushing air and the screech of blasterfire, Shae's audio receptors were able to pick up the voice of the droid driving the cab. "Weapons fire detected. Rerouting to nearest emergency landing pad."

"No!" Thrask shouted. "Keep this thing in the air, you damn droid!"

Shae drew a blaster pistol with her free hand and pulled herself up on the tether enough to fire a few suppressing shots into the cab. She caught a glimpse of Thrask's head as it ducked down behind the seat. Then his blaster came back up and he blindfired, missing wildly.

"You could come out of this with a stun burn, Thrask!" Shae called out. "Or I can put one through your tattoo! Your bounty is only slightly less if I bring you in dead!"

Thrask cursed and blindfired again, forcing Shae back onto her tether. When the bolts stopped coming, she pulled up and saw Thrask messing with the droid. She had a good idea of what he was trying to do.

"Wait!" she shouted. "Stop! You're gonna—"

The aircab dipped and, with an ever-so-slight shudder, powered down completely. They were falling almost instantly, the nose of the cab aimed straight down towards a cluster of rooftops. Level 221 became 222—and at 223 they crossed paths with an active skylane. Shae held her breath as they passed through the stream of air traffic, ready to hear the crash of what would likely be a fatal collision. Luckily, the approaching drivers were able to take evasive action and her plummeting cab passed cleanly through.

"Enough of this!" Shae could see the ground approaching, and fast. Thrask had stopped moving in the cab, probably figuring he had ended their little engagement with a forced draw. She could see him smiling madly, his eyes unblinking as the rooftops closed in. With stun bolts locked into her blaster, Shae fired a shot into Thrask's back and watched the man convulse once before going limp.

She pulled herself into the cab and grabbed a hold of Thrask by his belt. Looking out the window, she waited until the last possible second, until the rooftop of a Level 225 skyscraper was only meters below. Seconds to impact, Shae cut the tether and toggled her jetpack to full power. Flames built up inside the cab as she and Thrask rocketed out of the shattered back window. They rapidly ascended until her visor flashed with a temp warning, but even then, they were still caught in the explosion of the cab connecting with the rooftop.

Shae was flung off course as the concussion washed over her, pushing her well out of range of the landing spot she had been trying for. As the temp warning flared and cab debris collided with her armor like slugthrower rounds and her grip on Thrask started to loosen, she began to wonder what death would be like and how long she'd fall before hitting something. She made it to that state of mind between fear and loss where her mind accepted everything that was about to come.

_Oh, I suppose it's time to die now._

_How unfortunate._

A channel opened in her helmet's comm just as her jetpack sputtered and died—directly over a couple kilometers' worth of nothing. _"Hey, Shae! You won't freaking believe what just happened during the Telos Cup Series. My man Brejik just pulled a last minute miracle out of his hat! We won! We won so hard, Shae. You'll have no choice but to support my gambling addiction in the future, it was_ that _damn lucrative."_

"That's nice, Cander," Shae said as she fell. Not a hint of fear in her voice. "I gotta tell you something, okay? Something bad just happened."

_"I swear it was like nothing could stop that racer from Coruscant, but at the last turn he took it too wide. He just opened the door and Brejik walked right through. Right through!"_

"Cander!."

_"Gah! Stars, it was amazing! You should've seen it!"_

"Cander—!" Shae blinked and realized she had hit something. She wasn't dead... as far as she knew. She felt around, tapping her breastplate all the way up to her helmet, which she pulled off. Looking around, she and the unconscious Thrask had fallen right into the middle of a recycling transport, which was inexplicably opened to the sky and hovering in place. Like it had been waiting.

She quickly replaced her helmet. "Cander, can you hear me?"

_"Want to know what else just happened during the Telos Cup Series? Your brother sliced an automated recycling transport to catch you mid-fall."_

Shae eased back onto her cushion of plastics and papers, and, despite herself, began to laugh uncontrollably. The transport started moving again, and the hatch closed safely overhead.

There came a sound like a straw sucking at an empty glass. Cander exhaled with delight. _"You're welcome."_


	3. End of the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You can't win. But there are alternatives to fighting."_
> 
> -Obi-Wan Kenobi (0 BBY)

" _Come out, Shae! Come out—"_

Shae muted the comm and locked it into her utility belt; the rest of the stuff she had strewn across the apartment floor was stuffed at once into her travel pack. As much as she wanted to stick around, there was no way she could stay in the building any longer. They—whoever _they_ were—had tracked her here in the middle of the night, in the middle of a city that no longer had any structure, and they had done so without using any kind of tracking device.

She was absolutely sure of that. Part of the reason she had been breaking down and rebuilding her rifle so much was to make certain it hadn't been bugged. None of her sparse belongings had anything attached. Unless they had managed to bug her some other way, they were using other means to track her down, which meant it was time to abandon her hideout and get moving again. A shame, considering all of the work she had put into tying those threads around the room.

Taking a cursory peek outside the window, she saw that the darkened forms had already made their way across the debris field and were rounding her building, looking for a way inside. They would find it soon enough, since many of the windows at what was presently ground-level were wide open. She was about thirteen floors above their heads, and there were only two stairwells leading to the lower floors. They would very likely have both covered.

"Stupid, Shae," she muttered, then groaned when she noticed how much she sounded like Cander. She hated leaving things to chance, and had she known her pursuers would be able to pick her building out of a sector of _thousands_ , she might have taken her time and chosen a hideout with a better escape route.

She just never thought in a million years they would come right to her like she was wearing a spotlight on her head.

_There must be some kind of way out of here_ , she wondered, departing the room with her rifle slung over her shoulder. She emerged into a hallway that connected about a dozen apartments together on this floor. Some of the doors were locked shut and others had been pried open, a sign that a group of scavengers had already made their way through the place. There were perhaps billions upon billions of credits' worth of artifacts strewn in and around Taris that hadn't seen the light of day since the time of Revan and Malak, but only the crazy brave with no fear of poisonous fumes or accidentally falling into a chasm that might stretch all the way down into the Undercity _dared_ to voluntarily walk this planet's troubled surface.

Basically, if the money had been there, she would've taken up scavenging years ago. But it wasn't, so she didn't.

At the end of the hallway, Shae heard voices coming up through the exposed pipes. Nothing she could make out, but they were definitely getting too close for comfort. She had to find a way out of this building right now.

Taking the main stairwell to the roof wasn't going to be an option. If she remembered correctly, her building was the tallest of the surrounding cluster, so there wouldn't be a chance of jumping to another rooftop without breaking her legs or missing entirely—and she'd had enough of falling long distances for one week. Lowering herself down to the ground was another option she dismissed; it would take too long to descend those thirteen stories, and she guessed they would find her before she even reached the bottom.

But getting to another building... that seemed to be the only option open to her, short of fighting her way through her pursuers, that is. As far as she was concerned: with her limited ammo, lack of any kind of armor, and an incomplete sense of this building's layout, she wouldn't have an advantage over them no matter how many different ways she approached that scenario. Of course, that wasn't counting the fact that she was horribly outnumbered.

_Getting to another building sounds like a fine idea..._

Shae could hear footsteps coming up the stairwell, and laughing, which meant she was out of time to deliberate. She ducked in and out of a few apartments until she found one with a window facing the nearest adjacent building. It was still a little farther than she would've liked, but it would have to do. She grabbed her grappling spike launcher and used both hands to aim it at the window directly across from her, which was thankfully already broken. Exhaling, she pulled the trigger and watched the tiny durasteel hook fly through the night between the buildings, briefly catching the moonlight halfway across.

The spike entered through the other window and caught on something, signaling the tether to go taut. The device electronically tested the load limit of whatever it had grappled on the other side, then flashed green.

The laughing and the footsteps coming up the stairwell were much louder now; she could make out some of the words.

"Here, I know it!"

"Only a few more floors!"

_"Shae!"_ came that familiar voice. _"Shae, we're here!"_

Shae took her end of the grappling launcher and anchored it to what looked like a load-bearing pillar in the center of the room. She didn't have a chance to double check her knots, so it would have to do as-is.

_"Shae!"_

She sat herself down on the windowsill and let her feet dangle over the thirteen-story drop, her hands clinging to the thin tether. "I should've let you talk me out of this bounty, Cander..." She let her full weight drop onto the line and she bounced a few times, the thin tether cutting into her bare palms. Channeling all her strength, she crossed her legs over the wire and, slowly but surely, began to pull herself across the gap.

This wasn't her first time suspending between buildings, but it was certainly the most spontaneous out of the bunch. No time for planning, the proper equipment, or even to fire the spike at the correct slant so that gravity would assist her climb. The wire was biting into her hands now and shredding through the legs of her pants. Even during her first time, that hadn't happened.

"Stupid Shae..."

_One hand in front of the other_ , these were the only words moving through her mind as she reached the halfway point. The tether sagged a bit, making it a little more difficult to pull herself along. She should have _at least_ kept her gloves. She always kept her gloves with her before chartering transportation! Why was this time the exception?

"Stupid, stupid... Let's just prove Cander right tonight, everything he's ever said about me." She cursed a few more times under her breath. She was starting to feel the warm, moist feeling of blood on her hands. "Everything."

_"Shae!"_

That shout was as clear as day. They were on her floor now, and she likely only had a matter of seconds until they found her dangling half a klick in the air. She pulled at the tether faster, ignoring the pain and the blood, which she was now feeling across her legs. Not too far now, but the weight of her backpack and rifle seemed to increase exponentially. Sweat soaked into her shirt and drained off her face.

_Not too far now. Not too far._

She was within arm's length of the windowsill.

"I thought you said she was here! We don't have time to go floor-by-floor. You promised me a body—"

"I promised you justice, sir."

Shae desperately grabbed at the windowsill, feeling dirt pushing its way into her wound. After one quick pull, she tumbled inside the room. Then, running on adrenaline alone, she reached up, cut away the tether, and took aim with her rifle. Steadying the barrel on the windowsill, she activated the scope's night vision setting and adjusted the focus so she could see into the room she'd just departed. Another twist of the knob brought two figures into focus. They were standing in the middle of the apartment and one of them was throwing his arms around. He was likely the one who hadn't sounded pleased when they arrived to find her missing.

She could take care of that for him.

At this range, there wasn't much for her to do beyond lining up the rifle's crosshairs directly over the displeased man's rounded head. She squinted through the scope, curled her finger around the trigger, exhaled and—

_Bam!_

Her blaster bolt entered the apartment and the entire room was suddenly flooded with a bright light that overloaded her night vision and all but blinded her in one eye. She took her eye off the scope, furiously trying to blink away the pain and the blindness. It didn't take long for her vision to come back, but when it did, she beheld the true horror of her situation.

Framed by the window, the light had consolidated into a green bar of pure energy, being held aloft by a man in flowing robes. _A lightsaber..._ It all made sense now; how they had found her so easily. The man leading them.

He was a Jedi.

The displeased man who had been arguing with the Jedi stepped to the side and allowed a terrible laugh. "Is that you, Shae?" he called out. "I assume this tether belongs to you. Nice trick, but as you can see, tricks won't do much for you here. You're going to die on this planet, Mandalorian. I'm sure you know that now."

Shae sat back and held up her bloodied hands to the moonlight. Yeah, with a Jedi helping her pursuers track her down, she might very well die here. There was just no getting around that.

_Still_ , she amended, _that doesn't mean I can't take a few of them with me._ Shae licked the blood off one of her fingers and began to plan it all out.


	4. The Living Dead on Nar Shaddaa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Ah, the beautiful stench of decay and desperate living. Word of warning: watch your step, or you'll fall for hours."_
> 
> -Atton Rand (3,951 BBY)

"Here's how everything went down," said the Togruta. "This man, Kambern Polis, has been on my staff for well over ten years. Even before we made the move to Hutt Space, he's been one of the few people I could trust without the slightest thought to the contrary. Even after this whole mess, I'm still very much convinced that if the Exchange had a gun to his head and the Hutts had another to his crotch, he still wouldn't sell me out. Very much convinced. We've been through a lot together, he and I."

He clapped Kambern Polis on the shoulder and the man recoiled. "But he's known Thrask for an even longer stretch of time. There's some childhood obligation there, or so I'm told. Kam would never sell me out to the Exchange, the Hutts, or even the Dark kriffing Council, but he'd sure as dust see me kiss the ground before his precious Thrask was _slightly_ inconvenienced. It troubles me in a way that... Ah, well, never you mind. What's done is done."

The Togruta's name was Jarvin Trell, head of the Errant Gang, a relatively small-time organization compared to the giants that kept Nal Hutta and its moon spinning on their corrupt axes, but he had the credits where it counted.

And really, that was all that mattered to Shae in the grand scheme of things, but what Trell had to say right now was a matter of personal interest to her. She had just found out who let on to Thrask that a bounty hunter had been sent his way: one Kambern Polis, who was presently gagged and tightly bound to a chair, bruised and bloodied in the wake of his confirmed guilt in the matter.

She wasn't all too patient with folks who played havoc with her livelihood. It was the one area where her Mandalorian sensibilities seemed to fail her. "He picked the wrong bounty hunter to cross."

Trell snorted. "Trust me, he's well aware of that now." He gestured to Shae. "I do business with you because you get results, regardless of the situation. It reflects poorly on me—not as your employer, but as your _customer—_ that someone within my circle was the one to complicate your job. For that, you have my sincerest apologies."

"Apologies aren't necessary," she said. "Neither was the 'little' bonus you added to my account. Jobs get can get complicated regardless of how intensely it's planned out beforehand. It's a chaotic business to begin with."

"Quite right—and these are chaotic times, aren't they?" He stroked one of his head-tails as he paced in front of the sole window in the room, which framed a section of the Nar Shaddaa skyline that seemed to be made up of nothing but brightly-colored holo advertisements. The east wing of the Star Cluster Casino could be seen hovering out there behind one of the taller buildings, redirecting the skylanes as it drifted back and forth over vistas of interest to its patrons. "I want to offer you something."

Shae noticed she had been a tad distracted by the lights outside. "What kind of offer?"

"Regardless of what happens tonight, I will no longer be in need of Mr. Polis' services. His tenure in this organization has come to an unfortunately quick end. He threw a hydrospanner into the works, and you had to pay for it." He nodded. "The physical punishment was a start, and I think seeing his friend Thrask mounted there on the wall did him in quite well, as you can see."

Trell was right; Polis hadn't stopped weeping since Shae had pushed the carbonite slab into the room. Thrask's outspread hands and expression of pure terror were frozen in place and startlingly defined. It was probably the best freeze job Shae had pulled off, and it gave her no small amount of pride to see Trell immediately demand that the slab be mounted on the wall like a proper decoration.

"Thrask stole from me, and he will meditate on this for some time. His slight has been rectified. But as for Mr. Polis..." The Togruta nodded to one of his associates, who touched a panel that opened the window and allowed the strong smog of Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere inside at a concentrated dose. "Outside this window is an unobstructed drop to the ground level of Nar Shaddaa. I don't think I have to tell you that a fall from any one of the structures in this district is a fatal one, but this spot in particular is special."

Trell smiled, and Shae was suddenly convinced that there was nothing "small-time" about this man. "Drop Polis out this window, and he, too, will have some time to meditate on his slights before he kisses the ground. He'll fall through the air like a meteor, and he'll die with regret, I assure you."

Shae caught up to what the Togruta was offering. "You want me to drop him out the window?"

"I don't want you to do anything," he corrected. "Merely offering. As I understand it, you weren't particularly pleased to hear of our leak, so I think it's only fair you be given the chance to plug it."

She turned to Polis, who had long since turned pale but could do little else to express his fear beyond shouting against his gag. It was true, she had been absolutely _fuming_ the entire way back to Nar Shaddaa, eager to get her hands on whomever had blown the Coruscant plan. She had calmed herself down, of course, before meeting with Trell as professional courtesy demanded, and she thought that maybe she would be able to forgive, forget, and move on with business...

But now she realized she still _really_ wanted Polis dead.

Before she knew it, she was pulling Polis across the room, chair and all, and the man screamed and struggled furiously against his bindings the entire way. At the opened window, with the nightly breeze gently pouring in, she spun Polis around so they were looking each other in the eye. She took him by the shoulders and her lips parted into a pleasant smile. "I'm sorry you met me, Mr. Polis."

And with one push, the man was gone into the neonlit night—his look of terror the last thing to disappear over the edge.

The associate casually toggled the window shut again.

"Hate to keep any window opened for so long on this moon," said Trell with a disgusted shudder. "Smog gets into the carpeting, wallpaper. Stains it all. And the taste of it, definitely, ah... an acquired one."

Shae's heart was pounding, her hands were trembling. "Definitely."

"Glad to see Mr. Polis get his just desserts. Start counting down the seconds, because it'll be another few minutes before he finally kisses ground. Ah, my kingdom for a _glimpse_ of what's going through his head right now! Ha! Gets me every time." He clapped his hands together and a door at the end of the room opened. "What do you say we retire for dinner before you get on your way. Our in-house chef can do wondrous things with Bantha meat and a bit of Alderaanian wine."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to call our business concluded for now. It's been a trying couple of days and I have my own methods of unwinding." She could feel her left eyelid twitching. She had to get out of here.

"It's no problem at all, and I fully understand." Trell winked at the carbonite slab on the wall. "Thrask understands, too. Don't you, Thrask?"

* * *

"I'm telling you, I haven't felt that way in a long time." Shae leaned back in her chair—her absolute favorite chair in The Slippery Slopes Cantina—and took another sip of dakaar juice, enjoying the delightful taste in her mouth and the soothing burn at the back of her throat as she swallowed. "I think I could've turned a vibroblade on everyone in that building and it wouldn't have been enough."

_"Yeah,"_ Cander said through the comm. She could hear a swoop race in the background, so she wasn't expecting a very fulfilling conversation tonight. _"That's nice."_

"I feel like I've heard about it from other mercs we've met. Wish I could remember what they said, but I'm sure it boiled down to the standard 'We carry the bloodline of Mandalorian warriors' response, or some such nonsense."

_"Yeah."_

"Killing him just felt like such a release. It was a little frightening how much I enjoyed it."

_"Mmhmm."_

"Is that the Corellian Cup you're watching right now?"

She got no reply; only more sounds like crowds cheering.

"Nar Shaddaa gets that race through the HoloNet without a delay."

_"Huh... Wait—don't!"_

"The racer from Tatooine wins by a very wide margin."

_"NO!"_ She could hear Cander slamming his fists down onto something. _"Why! Why do you hate me? I've been waiting to watch this race for months!"_

"Really?"

_"Weeks!"_

"Cander..."

_"Okay, maybe since yesterday... But still!"_

"You'll get over it." Shae took another drink and watched the neon advertisements outside coalesce into one towering image of a Twi'lek dancer, wordlessly urging any viewers to visit the Star Cluster Casino: the only casino on Nar Shaddaa that _Rises Above the Rest!_ "Fine, I'll move off Polis. What does our account look like right now?"

Cander sighed and typed something at his terminal. _"Like you just performed open heart surgery on three political dignitaries. Is this your client's idea of a 'little' bonus!"_

"Trust me, I was just as surprised. He took the whole leak situation very personally."

He whistled. _"Shae, this puts you well into the green for the rest of the year. If my numbers are correct—to which you respond..."_

Shae rolled her eyes. "And they _always_ are."

_"Then unless you decide to take a trip to the Outer Rim, you're good on business_ and _pleasure expenses for at least six months."_

"Unless you gamble it all away."

_"That's why I said 'at least' six months. I factor my addiction into everything."_ He clapped his hands. _"Congratulations, Sis, your business has officially netted you a profit. You also got to throw some guy off a building, so I'd say this has been a banner week for the Vizla siblings."_

"I'll drink to that," said Shae, raising her glass. "Not very often a job nearly gets botched and I still come out on top."

_"Not very often as in: it should never happen, and probably won't happen again. Don't get comfy, don't get soft, let someone else throw the guy off the building next time. That's my all-encompassing solution for your very atypical problems right there."_

"I know, I know." She held up a hand as if he could see her. "Just let me enjoy this for one night."

_"Fine, one night."_ He snickered, and said, _"So, when are you heading back to Vulta?"_

A local band had started playing on the small stage in the corner. It was all brass and woodwind, so Shae had to speak a little louder. "I'll be heading out early tomorrow during whatever counts as morning around here. It'll take me an extra day to get home, though. Had to leave the _Taylir IV_ on Coruscant and hitch a ride with Nico Okarr to get Thrask out here on time. Red flags were popping up all over the sector after my little romp through Two Twenty-three, and I didn't want to risk getting searched."

_"Wow. Okarr's still flying, huh?"_

"They haven't shot him down yet. Saving a Jedi tends to give you a bit of legal wiggle room, I suppose."

_"You suppose correctly. Anyway, pass along my regards."_

"Will do," Shae replied. "I'll call you when I'm back aboard the _Taylir_."

_"Sounds like a plan. Have a safe flight."_

"Thanks." She quickly added, "And don't go gambling away my bonus!"

_"Heh... Yeah, okay..."_ The channel went dead.

Shae let the possibility of being broke by the time she returned home settle in for a moment, but then chased it away with a second glass of dakaar juice. After that, the band got marginally better, the voices got a little dimmer, and the lights outside got delightfully brighter. She lived for moments like this, when she could just breathe easy without the looming shadow of obligation.

Okkar would hang around the moon for another day or so, trying to get himself a few smuggling contracts, which he would most definitely land. Until then, Shae had nothing to do beyond enjoying the moment, and the lights. She loved the lights of the Smuggler's Moon, how they were perpetual but always changing. The neon holo of the Twi'lek dancer morphed into six separate ads for six different cleaning products, which morphed into scene from a holodrama, which morphed into a call for tourists to visit the beautiful world of Alderaan, complete with scenic waterfalls and a rich history dating back to the birth of the Republic... and so on.

Shae could get lost in it all, and often did just that. There was so much happening out there in the galaxy and, like the holos, it was always changing, always perpetuating, and she was excited to be a part of it. Shae eased back in her chair and watched the lights for some time, smiling to herself.

* * *

Her chrono said it was morning, but the night hadn't yet departed—and wouldn't for another few days while Nal Hutta loomed between Nar Shaddaa and the warming light of Y'Toub. Nico Okarr was already up and prepping his light freighter, _Redshifter_ , for what he liked to call a "soft launch." This, as it had been explained to Shae, meant that time wasn't an issue as far as getting offworld was concerned, but a hangover most definitely was.

Shae guided one of the lifters into the freighter's cargo hold and dropped a pallet of unmarked "goods" in an out-of-the-way corner to make room for the rest. Nico had most definitely landed a few smuggling contracts overnight and then proceeded to celebrate at the Jekk'Jekk Tarr until he passed out from "exhaustion." Dealing with Nico Okarr involved a lot of reading between the lines.

"Lucked out with a contract that sends me down the Perlemian Route," Nico said, looking over his manifest. "I'll have a ship full of cargo the entire way that I'll be able to unload without any crazy detours, which pretty much means anything I make outside the contract will be pure profit." He laughed heartily and tussled Shae's hair as she passed by. "Credits in hand, Vizla. Credits in hand."

"It's been a good week for both of us, hasn't it?" Shae parked the lifter in its hold and stepped down the loading ramp to join Nico. "I know it's already been said, but thank you for giving my bounty and I a ride from Coruscant. Hope what I paid you was enough."

He shook his head mirthfully. "It was way more than what was necessary, which is to say I was just happy to help. Don't you and your brother go thinking you need to pay a fare any time you call me."

"No, we know that."

"You guys are family. I can't stop you from going behind my back and sending money into my account, but I would never take a single credit from you."

"We know."

"Unless you just really, _really_ want to unload some credits on someone, then I'm the guy for that. Look no further."

Shae nodded and grinned. "We know."

Nico placed a wide-brimmed hat on his head of black and gray hair and looked at his old freighter with pride. He looked at that ship the same way Shae looked at the lights of Nar Shaddaa. "We'll be taking off shortly. Everything's already loaded by my reckoning, but I gotta grease a few palms in the customs office. Shouldn't take more than an hour if you just wanna wait onboard."

"Okay. And I won't touch any buttons—"

"Just make sure you don't touch any buttons. I got everything just so, all right?"

"Just so," echoed Shae. "Understood, Captain."

"All right. See you in a bit."

When Nico disappeared into the starport offices, Shae ascended the loading ramp and watched it close shut behind her. The inside of the _Redshifter_ was exactly what you would expect from a starship that hadn't stopped flying for over thirty years. It was definitely lived-in, though Nico liked to keep the interior as immaculate as he could manage. Within reason, of course; Nico's definition of immaculate was something closer to the Huttese translation. Machine parts were strewn across what was intended to be a dining table, the dejarik board was still out of commission after a failed attempt at rigging a game, and there were liquor bottles balanced precariously on the environmental control panel.

The _Redshifter_ was the closest thing to a home away from home for Shae, since she had known Nico all her life, and he had been a friend of the family years before that. Traditional Mandalorians like her parents very rarely befriended anyone outside the clans, but Nico had a way about him that made even the most distrustful people think twice about him. It was part of what made him so successful at his job.

Since her parents had died, Nico was the closest thing she had to family besides Cander. The man's seemingly constant fraternization with Jedi was the only reason she didn't visit him as much as she probably should. Ever since the stunt he pulled during the Battle of Korriban, he had been in the Order's good graces—and, by extension, the Republic's—and would likely continue to be indefinitely.

Shae just couldn't risk crossing paths with one of them. She didn't know how she'd react, thought it would probably end badly for all parties involved.

She moved up to the cockpit and plopped into the copilot's seat. With an hour to kill and a very boring view of the spaceport wall through the front viewport, she decided to check in on her contact list. Every hour, her datapad would update with a list of bounties that had been posted up throughout the galaxy, in both Republic and Sith space.

Her process: She would sort through them by distance, since traveling from Core to Rim to snatch up a murderer or an embezzler was rarely lucrative. Then by priority, because a higher priority on the board meant a better payout, plain and simple. Then she eliminated a few choice systems that were heavily embroiled in the Republic/Sith conflict, because the likelihood of unknowingly chasing down war criminals was way too high, and jobs like that always ended up becoming hopelessly entangled in battlefield bureaucracy, leaving her payout in a state of flux for months if not _years_.

The list Shae was left with was usually a bit more manageable, but she never got to actually see this list because a notification that popped up on the screen. She had to take a breath when she saw it. Someone sent her a direct message.

_A direct message!_

The only place that had her contact information was the Bounty Brokers Association, and they would only hand it out if someone required her services. _Her_ services, over anyone else on this list. Since she had taken up the bounty game, the only one to ever contact her directly had been Jarvin Trell, the Togruta, but that had been done through personal connections. Unless there had been an error, this was through the most official channel available.

And the highest paying.

Taking another breath, she opened the message and read through it once, twice, three times, and before she even realized what she had done, she had already typed up and sent an acceptance letter—which, through the BBA, was as binding as any contract. She cheered loudly into the cockpit and waved her arms around in fierce celebration until the consequences of what she had done set in.

_Oh, boy. Cander is not going to want to hear this..._


	5. Dark of the Starwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"One can concentrate so closely on the words of a sentence that one thereby misses the meaning. As can happen in any area of life. You must never lose focus on the larger landscape."_
> 
> -Force Commander Thrawn (27 BBY)

" _I never wanted it to end this way. You must believe me when I say that I don't believe in prolonging such things. What happened in orbit and what's happening right now, it could have been avoided. For the second time, a Jedi has underestimated the Mandalorians in this conflict, and it won't happen again._

_"It can't happen. Do you understand why?"_

Dark clouds blotted out the moon, creating a deeper shade of night throughout the ruins of Taris. By that time, Shae had been navigating the wreckage by touch and instinct for hours, using the light on her data-gauntlet only if she felt her life would be in danger otherwise. It was all a moot point, she supposed. If she stayed still, her pursuers would find her. If she used her light, her pursuers would find her. If she didn't use her light, she might accidentally impale herself in the dark or worse... and her pursuers would still find her.

There wasn't much else that could be done. She kept moving, knowing full well that although her high wire act had allowed her to put some distance between the Jedi and his group, that gap could be easily closed if she was careless.

_"This war will claim our collective dignity. It's inevitable. I only ask that you make this easier on yourself. To draw this out any longer will only make the process worse for you. Shae Vizla, you need to let go. Your time has come and gone."_

She switched on her light and found that the beam she was walking passed over a breach in a tramway tunnel. It wouldn't have been a fatal fall, but she was still grateful she had taken a chance on the light. The edges around the breach reminded her of the teeth of a sarlaac, melted into fine points that might have ripped her to shreds if she'd lost her balance. She briefly entertained the thought of dropping down into the tunnel; it would have made traversing the ruined city that much easier, but she didn't want to risk finding a collapsed tunnel or a derailed tram blocking the way.

Walking the surface was a pain, but at least there was some certainty there.

Shae walked the length of the beam and stepped down safely on the other side of the breach, her feet loosing sand and rock from the edges that created painfully loud echoes. She heard the sounds travel away through the tunnels and bounce off the walls of the surrounding structures. Then everything faded—

And she felt something burn into her left shoulder. She was thrown off her feet and tumbled down an artificial escarpment of metal paneling and pulverized ferrocrete, cutting herself a dozen ways on the way down. When her mind finally caught up to what had happened, she found herself lying on the side of some kind of transport, gutted by its impact with the ground three centuries ago. Reaching up, she brushed away the embers of her scorched clothing and noticed the trailing wound across her shoulder.

Someone had just taken a shot at her, and that someone hadn't quite missed.

Shae stayed on her back, listening intently to her surroundings, trying to get a bead on her pursuers. She could hear distant cheering and clapping before it was quickly shushed. They had her in their sights and were probably waiting for her to pop her head back up above the escarpment.

She gritted her teeth. With the adrenaline wearing off, she was feeling the harsh burn of her new wound. It had been a grazing shot and was already fully cauterized, but the pain was just as intense as if it had gone through and through.

Thinking over her situation: she couldn't stand or run. She would have to crawl until she found better cover. The going would be painfully slow, but there wasn't much else that could be done. It was certainly better than death.

_"Surrender, Shae."_

Shae assumed the voice that had been forcing its way through her comlink was the Jedi. She could pick out that self-righteous, bordering on arrogant, tone in a crowded cantina. She turned off the device again, but not a minute had passed before the thing was turned on again.

_"These men are hunting you for their own reasons. Surrender to me, and I will pay off the bounty that's been placed on your head. You will live, and we will exact justice upon you without the need for bloodshed."_

"For sounding like a Jedi," Shae whispered, pushing a section of transparisteel out of her way, "you sure don't sound like a Jedi."

_"You needn't worry about that, Shae. I assure you, this has been a long time coming."_

"From what I hear, Jedi don't dabble in the bounty game. Do the Sith have you pressed for credits these days?"

_"This isn't about money. This is about—"_

"Justice?"

A pause. _"Yes, Shae."_

"You lot have a funny way of _exacting_ justice. You lie to me, blindside me in orbit, and chase me across a slagged world for reasons you have yet to specify... and I'm supposed to believe this is all in the interest of justice?"

Another pause. _"As I said, I never wanted it to end this way."_

"Yeah, well..." Shae took a moment to get her anger in check. "You better hope that you or your buddies kill me, because if you don't... you won't like what happens next." She placed the comm in front of her and used a chunk of rock to smash the device to pieces. The battery sparked, throwing bits of circuitry in all directions. "Boring conversation, anyway."

She spent the next hour crawling towards the nearest building through the path of least resistance. Speeders and ships of all types littered the grounds, sometimes whole, sometimes halved and scattered across the ditch they had made when they crashed. There was a good chance she was back out of range of her pursuers' weapons, but she didn't want to play the odds in this case. She wanted to draw this out for as long as she could manage.

The light of the moon cut through the cloud cover as Shae reached a wide building that slanted out of the rubble at an uncomfortable angle. Knowing her pursuers would have an even better chance of honing in on her now that there was some semblance of light outside, she hurried into the building to give herself some good cover.

The entrance was propped open and marked with a scavenger's brand, telling her that most of the valuables had been hauled out. Sometimes it was meant to help out any other scavengers on the planet so that they didn't waste their time, but it was usually put up to throw other people off, to make them think everything was gone even though the operation hadn't been finished. Right now, it just meant she wouldn't have any trouble getting indoors.

Shae waited to switch on her light until she was deep inside the building, and she soon discovered she had entered a place that was decidedly not another office building or humdrum apartment complex. The hallway she walked was covered with the shattered remains of marble statues, the intact faces of some still out in the open and covered with graffiti. Most of the work hadn't been done by the bombardment; it seemed like someone had taken some kind of hammer to each of the statues. For what reason, she couldn't even guess. Scavengers got bored sometimes, but defacing statues that were undoubtedly worth more in one piece had to take a special kind of boredom.

Even though the hallway was a mess, there was a sense of elegance about the architecture. Though layered with dust, cerulean paneling inlaid with swirling bronze designs covered the walls, topped by a barrel vaulted ceiling that receded out beyond the reach of her light. Murals could still be seen through the dust, stretched across the ceiling in a continuous depiction of something resembling Corellian myths with godlike figures reaching for yellow stars in a midnight sky.

In place of some of the stars, someone—likely a scavenger—had scratched in the symbol for credits into the painting.

_How profound..._ she thought disparagingly.

The hallway ended at a balcony that was connected to a very wide spiral staircase. Peering over the railing, she saw nothing but a very long fall into darkness. Shining a light down the staircase didn't help all that much; the bottom seemed to extend far below "ground level," and ended at a point she couldn't quite make out. But she could hear noises softly echoing up to her from the abyss. Noises like growls.

She unconsciously began to breathe a little quieter and move with much more care. Every clumsy footfall she made on the slanted floor seemed to bounce off the walls with noticeable intensity. If there was something living down there, she was very sure she didn't want to disturb it...

Something passed in front of her light. Glistening skin, pale white, rippling with muscles. She put a hand over the gauntlet and listened for movement. Whatever was down at the bottom of the staircase hadn't decided to investigate the light, so she pressed on deeper into the building, keeping an eye out for anything she could use against her pursuers...

_Anything..._

Shae looked over her shoulder, back to the staircase. Though she knew she would probably regret what she was about to do, she grabbed a piece of rubble and stepped forward, anyway. She held the chunk of ferrocrete over the dark of the staircase and, bracing herself for a possible sprint, dropped it. The chunk dropped out of sight and she held her breath—and waited.

_Crash!_

A terrifying roar erupted from the darkness, then others joined it, and the air was so filled with the noise she had to cover her ears until it died away. Again, nothing was climbing up the staircase, but the primal grunts, scratching, and shrieks all but forced Shae to keep one hand wrapped tightly around the grip of her pistol.

Whatever those things were, they didn't seem to have the proper faculties to deduce that something had dropped that rubble from above. They had followed the sound and attacked.

This. This would work in her favor.

Shae moved away from the staircase to look for a place she could work without worrying about noise. Her pursuers would be coming soon, and she wanted to make sure she'd be in a position to give them a Vizla welcome.

A bronze sign marked the end of the next hallway, and it read: _The Starwell Hotel of Taris_.

_Enjoy Your Stay!_


	6. Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"When did a nice girl like you learn to do things like that?"_
> 
> -Han Solo (40 ABY)

Shae spent most of her walk through the Mezenti Spaceport on Nar Shaddaa trying to ignore her brother and the remarkably constant string of expletives he was managing to weave together. She had heard backwater dock workers in the heat of an argument show more restraint, which impressed her more than anything else. All she could really do, as she looked around the facility for her contact, was pretend like she was listening and make the standard response when she heard a break in Cander's rambling.

"I understand that, Cander," she lied, "but this is from the BBA."

_"To hell with the BBA!"_ Cander shouted through the comlink, drawing stares from other travelers in the starport. Shae grinned nervously and mouthed apologies before moving on. _"I don't get you sometimes, Shae. You're the only person I know who isn't satisfied with having an account full of credits, more than you even know what to do with, more than you can even spend!"_

"More than you can gamble away?"

_"Yea—no! You know what I meant!"_

Shae shrugged. "What's wrong with having more than enough?"

A few more curses hissed through the channel. _"Money is never a problem. It's what money attracts that's the problem. You're going through the BBA now, through official channels. You're gonna be tracking some hard targets that aren't just petty criminals who robbed the wrong crime boss. These are going to be upper tier baddies who are tied into groups that won't like a bounty hunter mucking up their game."_

"So, basically what I'm getting out of this is: you're worried about me."

_"No, I'm perfectly a-okay with the possibility looming that my sister will rub the Exchange the wrong way. Or the Hutts. Or even Czerka, in all their false benevolence."_

Shae smiled. "I'll be fine, Cander. In any case, this seems like a trial run for my new employer. They're personally flying me out to Tatooine and covering all my expenses, so all I have to do is step off the transport and track their mark down. On Tatooine, Cander."

He replied with a sigh.

"You know how easy it is to track someone there. Like—"

_"Like finding stink on a Hutt, I know."_

"Okay, so we're in agreement."

_"A_ tentative _agreement, Shae. Get to Tatooine, find your mark, and get home. The less time you're formally employed by these people, the better."_

"Thanks for understanding," Shae said.

_"Right."_ She could hear him biting his fingernails in the background. _"Well, are you at least gonna send me the information so I can help you track this guy?"_

"It's already sent."

Cander typed something at his terminal. _"You couldn't have known beforehand that I'd agree to this."_

"You always end up agreeing, Cander."

_"This could've been the exception. There will come a day when I'm gonna have_ anything _better to do when you call."_

"Goodbye, Cander."

_"_ Anything _better, Shae!"_

She closed the channel and slipped the comlink onto her utility belt. At the far end of the terminal, a Human male wearing a very nice suit was standing next to Dock 322, holding up a sign that had one word printed across it: _Vizla_. She rolled her trunk of equipment over to the man and shook his hand.

"You're Miss Shae Vizla?" he asked.

"That I am. You're my contact?"

"Rennat, pleased to meet you. I'll be acting on behalf of my employer during this job. Any expenses or queries will all go through me."

Shae nodded understandingly. "You're my go-to guy."

"Exactly," Rennat replied. "In fact, do you have any questions before we proceed?"

She shook her head. "Are we ready to get offworld?"

Rennat chuckled. "We most certainly are." He pointed at her trunk. "If you don't mind, I'll secure your belongings down in the cargo hold before we get to the briefing."

"You can take my trunk down there," she said, rolling it around so he could take the handle. "But I'll be keeping my pistols with me."

He cleared his throat. "I must insist that we keep everything that might accidentally discharge out of the passenger cabin. I assure you, they will be quite safe with us."

Shae had to laugh. "It's not about my blasters being safe, it's about _me_ being safe. If you think you're gonna disarm a bounty hunter before she steps onto a ship with persons unknown, this is going to be a very brief and fruitless working relationship." She jabbed a finger at him. "Your employer hired me for a reason. This is part of it."

The man looked uncomfortable, shifting around where he stood and looking around as if someone would be there to back him up. "I, ah... I suppose exceptions could be made in this case." He straightened his coat jacket. "My employer spoke very highly of you, so I wouldn't like to be the one to tell him our deal fell through because of a formality."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Very well." He motioned to the hatch. "We'll be leaving shortly. Just past the airlock is the passenger cabin. Minus the crew and myself, you're the only other person aboard, so feel free to choose whichever seat you'd like."

"Thank you." Shae stepped through the airlock and made a hard right into the passenger cabin, while Rennat took a left down a ramp into the transport's hold. The ship wasn't all that big, maybe no larger than a NR2 gully jumper. From the seat she decided on, she could see the door into the cockpit, the refresher, a small kitchen area, and the ramp to the cargo hold just by turning her head. She wondered if her own ship, the _Taylir IV_ , might have rivaled her new employer's vessel in terms of size.

A brown-haired woman wearing a gaudy blue dress emerged from the cockpit and walked over to secure the airlock. "Welcome aboard," she said sweetly as she passed Shae. Almost immediately after the hatch was sealed and the cabin pressurized, the floor began to vibrate as the engines primed.

Outside her window, their gate retracted into the starport, and she could hear voices from the cockpit confirming their ascent vector. The woman nodded as she passed Shae again on her return trip to the cockpit, and by then, the transport was slowly pulling away from Mezenti.

Shae could hear the captain on the comm before the door was shut. "Roger that, Tower, we are clear for ascent. Increasing thrust to—"

With that, their transport accelerated up and away from the surface of Nar Shaddaa, passing through the perpetual aura of ethereal light that loomed heavy over the moon, the color of holo static. Her first mistake, Shae would later realize, was being so taken by the view as they ascended through the atmosphere. She was always the pilot when she came to Nar Shaddaa, never the passenger. Being able to watch the lights of the city as they pulled away without having to keep an eye on her control board elated her to no end.

Her second mistake was not realizing that Rennat hadn't returned from his trip to the cargo hold, even though stowing her trunk of equipment couldn't have taken so long on a transport so small. At that point, she was still overwhelmed by the view and the knowledge that she had _finally_ made it in the bounty game. She was working through the BBA now, and things were about to change for her and Cander in ways that she could only just comprehend.

She never could've known how right she was.

* * *

Shae never dreamed of her parents. Not for years. Why they came to her during her trip on her new employer's transport, she would never quite understand.

She could hear their voices, see their hardened faces emerging from the ether of her mind—

She could smell the burning corpses.

Being so young when they died, the images eddied and blurred into each other until they resolved into two bodies lying on the floor, their torsos rent by a burning weapon. Her parents had died fighting, but they had died right in front of her. Cander's hand tried to close over her eyes, but she could still see that beam of blue light, and the hiss/click of a lightsaber deactivating.

Her third mistake was not tasting the null gas as it was being pumped into the passenger cabin.

"Is she out, Kelsai?" Rennat asked though a gas mask.

"Yeah, she's out," a woman, Kelsai, replied. The one from the cockpit, judging by the voice. "There's a chance she might just be lucid right now, but give it another minute and she won't wake up until our friends get her back to Coruscant."

"It's that effective, huh?"

"Surgeons use lighter stuff when they're putting patients down before surgery. You could ride through the Maw and she'd never know it."

"I suppose I'll take your word on that." He pushed the hair out of Shae's eyes. "Have we made contact with our mystery employer yet?"

"No, but he's not late. We just began our first orbit around Taris and the captain said we're not expecting anyone for another few minutes or so."

Rennat groaned. "I just want to get this woman off the ship as soon as possible. I poked around in her equipment trunk before I spaced it. She was armed to the teeth. Mando armor and everything."

A beat of silence. "Employer didn't say anything about capturing a Mando, did he?" asked Kelsai.

"He conveniently neglected to mention that little point. Come on, let's get some binders on her."

"Got them right here." She pointed at Shae's hips. "You're going to take those, right?"

"Damn," he said. "Nearly forgot. She wouldn't let me take them to the hold. It was either let her bring them aboard or watch her walk away."

"Whatever, just hand them to me."

Rennat went to unhook Shae's utility belt. "I know better than to ask the captain, but that mystery employer better be paying us real kriffing good for this."

The belt was unhooked, but it wouldn't come off. He looked up to see a blaster pistol pressed up against his gas mask.

"He better," said Shae, and put a bolt through the man's forehead.

* * *

Outside the viewport, a _Tracer_ -class light corvette pulled up along side and matched the transport's orbit around Taris. When they didn't get a response through the comm, the corvette used a signal lamp on its hull to flash blink code into the cabin that said _HELP REQUIRED?_

Kelsai didn't know where the controls were for their own lamp, and if the captain had told her at some point, her mind was in too much of a haze to remember, but she did have the bounty hunter's data-gauntlet. Pointing it out a starboard viewport, she clumsily toggled the light control and replied _YEZ. HELP._ She had forgotten the code for "S."

The corvette flashed a confirmation and a few controlled thruster bursts brought the two ships' airlocks alongside each other. A dull thud signaled the connection and pressurization of an umbilical. Kelsai waited at the hatch, her face nearly pressed up against the transparisteel, her panicked breaths fogging up the view. She looked over to the bounty hunter every now and then, trying to assure herself that the woman wouldn't be getting up again. The null gas should've done the trick the first time, but, then again, they hadn't counted on capturing a Mandalorian, had they?

Rennat's body was still sprawled across the main aisle of the passenger cabin, blood spattered across the inside of his gas mask. She worked up some tears for the man.

Someone knocked against the transport's hatch. It made Kelsai jump; she screamed and her hands flew to her mouth. There was a man on the other side of the transparisteel window, motioning for her to open up the hatch. She briefly stumbled on the hem of her dress and yanked the release lever home. A group of five mercenaries spilled into the transport, weapons ready, their eyes taking in the scene in front of them.

The man she had seen at the window grabbed her by the shoulder. "Is there anyone else in here?" he asked.

Kelsai fought through the panic to say, "N-no."

"Malkis, take Oppal down into the cargo hold. The rest of you sweep the rest of the ship. 'Thorough' is the word. Understand?" He returned his attention to Kelsai. "Who did this?" He tilted his head towards Rennat's body, the blaster marks on the ceiling, the woman sitting still near one of the viewports. "Is that who we're here for?"

This time, Kelsai couldn't find the words so quickly. She nodded and took a moment to collect herself.

"Come on, girl. I need you here."

"It was her." Kelsai pointed at the bounty hunter. "Sh-she woke u-up while we were drugging her, and she killed..." She wiped away the tears that had made it all the way to her chin. "She... She killed everyone."

"The pilots?" he asked.

"Dead," she replied. "They shorted out the controls so she couldn't take over the ship. That's why I wasn't able to..." She pointed towards the corvette, left the rest unsaid.

"All right." He walked over to the bounty hunter and looked her over. She was slumped over, her head pressed up against the seat in front of her. The man lifted her head up and a steady stream of foam dripped out of her mouth, which seemed to satisfy him. "Definitely null gas. She'll be out for a good long time."

Kelsai nodded, but didn't say anything.

"Where were you when all this was happening?" he asked. A few of his friends had returned from their sweep of the ship and made an OK gesture.

"I was standing right next to him." She pointed at Rennat. "We were just about to slip some... some binders on her when she... Like she had been breathing oxygen the whole time!" She pushed her hair back. "She killed Rennat, and I think she would've killed me, but she needed the cockpit open. I didn't know what else to do! I-I just didn't want to die!"

Her hysterics seemed to be wearing on the man. "Look, calm down. There's not much you could've done."

"By the time she had made it into the cockpit, she was talking funny, off balance. The captain and copilot shorted out the controls and she shot them for that." Kelsai took in a calming breath. "Before she could do anything to me, she collapsed."

One of the mercs, Malkis, whispered something into the man's ear.

The man nodded. "Okay." He lowered his weapon. "Well, miss, this could've gone a lot better, but we have our woman. I can only assume you'll be taking your crew's cut of the profits for yourself, so you have that to look forward to, if nothing else."

Kelsai's eyes bore into a section of paneling, distant, unblinking.

The man sighed. He was losing patience with her. "Kraul, what's the situation in the cockpit?"

Kraul poked his head out of the cockpit, his expression grim. "Not looking good, sir. They shorted this thing all to hell. I might be able to get everything back online, but that would take a few hours."

The man shook his head. "No good. Our employer wants the Mandalorian on Coruscant ASAP. Start locking everything down while we get our two guests on board."

Kraul saluted. "As ordered, sir."

"What's you name?" the man asked her.

She broke out of her stress-induced trance. "Kelsai."

"Okay. My name is Zarl. Since things aren't looking too good as far as your ship goes, you're gonna come back with us. We're on our way to Coruscant, but if you want to be dropped off anywhere along the way, I'm sure we can accommodate you."

"Okay."

"Anywhere else, and you'll have to pick up a connecting flight. Understand?"

"Yeah," she said and sniffed. "Thank you, Zarl."

"Malkis, you help me bring the Mandalorian to the medical bay. Kelsai, you follow behind us."

Zarl unceremoniously dragged the bounty hunter out of her seat by her arms while Malkis grabbed her ankles. Kelsai followed them through the docking umbilical and into the corvette, where they quickly wound their way through a corridor and down some stairs into a very utilitarian medical bay. It was a small room with one bed, some medical equipment, and a few chairs scattered about; perfect for treating things a mercenary might encounter on a typical day, but not much else.

They dropped the bounty hunter on the bed and Zarl pulled out some retractable restraints. "Strap her down," Zarl told Malkis, and together they pulled the restraints taut across her legs, arms, chest, and shoulders. "From here on out, I want two people with eyes on this room at all times, hear?"

"I hear you, sir," said Malkis.

"No more mistakes. Our employer wants her alive, and I know he's not going to be all that pleased to hear most of Rennat's team got vaped."

"She'll make it to Coruscant, sir."

Zarl allowed a feral grin. "You say that like there's a chance she won't."

"I left chance back in the starport, sir. As ordered."

"That's what I like to hear." Zarl punched the intercom. "Jes, get me a secure channel to our employer. Want to let him know we got his Mandalorian."

_"I've already got him on hold, sir."_ Jes replied. _"He seemed pretty eager to know how everything went."_

"Smooth sailing. Go ahead and put him through down here."

_"He's still insisting on voice only."_

He muted the intercom and turned to Malkis. "I have never dealt with anyone with such a fetish for secrecy."

Malkis shrugged. "As long as he pays well."

"Heh. You guys have been hanging around me too much. I'm starting to hear too much of myself in you." Malkis laughed to himself and Zarl unmuted the intercom. "All right, Jes, transfer the call to me. And calculate the jump to hyperspace so we can get out of here as soon as the others are done closing up shop."

_"Already have, as ordered, sir."_

"What did I tell you?" he said to Malkis. He pulled out his personal holoprojector and connected his employer's call. Zarl wouldn't be able to see his mystery employer, but the employer would be able to see them. "Can you hear me, sir?"

_"Loud and clear, Zarl,"_ said the employer. _"I hope you bear good news."_

"Good and bad," Zarl admitted. "The bad first: Rennat's team ran into a bit of a snag. The null gas they were using to knock out the Mandalorian didn't have the desired effect. Rennat's dead, as is the captain and copilot of their ship."

The employer sighed heavily. _"This was supposed to be accomplished without loss of life."_

"I understand that, sir, but Rennat had his operation and we had ours. In the future, I might suggest letting us get the job done rather than going through different parties."

_"Timing necessitated the hiring of multiple crews in this instance, but your suggestion has been noted. You had good news for me."_

"Ah, yes. The good news is that one of Rennat's crew, Miss Kelsai, survived long enough to make sure the Mandalorian was properly subdued. We have your mark restrained, unconscious, and ready for transport to Coruscant as we speak."

_"That is wonderful news, Zarl. Can you hold the projector over the body?"_

"Can do." Zarl aimed the camera in the direction of the unconscious bounty hunter, grinning confidently to Malkis all the while.

_"Mister Zarl, you have a serious problem,"_ said the employer.

"Excuse me?"

_"This is not the Mandalorian I hired your team to retrieve. Something has gone wrong."_

"Wrong!" Zarl spun the projector around and looked directly into the camera. "Nothing went _wrong_ , sir.

_"I assure you, something has. I have her profile sitting right here in front of me, as well as visual confirmation from Rennat's last data packet. That woman you have is not the Mandalorian, Zarl."_

"Look, buddy, you hired us to take the unconscious Mandalorian from Rennat's team and transport her safely to Coruscant. We did that. There was no one else—"

It finally clicked.

Kelsai quietly unholstered one of the blaster pistols at the bounty hunter's hip, taking aim as the sobering possibility overtook Zarl. She fired twice into Malkis's skull, his body crumpling like a house of cards; he was in her blind spot, and she didn't have time to make sure everyone played nice.

Zarl saw his friend die and an expression of pure shock washed over his face. "What have you—!" He reached for his blaster rifle.

"Don't do that," Kelsai said evenly. "I don't mind killing you if you inconvenience me here."

The man reluctantly stepped away from the weapon, rage back-building in his eyes. "You're the Mandalorian."

Kelsai dropped all pretense. She relaxed in her dress, held the pistol confidently at Zarl's forehead. Shae stood in her place. Like Jaq Rand always said concerning infiltration, _The only real difference between the truth and a lie is whether or not you, as the liar, believe it yourself._ Her Kelsai had been one hell of a good lie. "You don't miss much, do you?" she said, then angled her head at the unconscious woman on the bed. "Except when it matters." She held out her hand. "Give me the projector."

Zarl hesitated, then tossed it at her. It went wider than was necessary; he was probably trying to distract her. She snatched it out of the air without breaking eye contact, then addressed the mystery employer. "May I ask who's speaking?" she singsonged.

_"Surrender to these men, Shae."_

"That's not what I asked," she replied. "And also, no. They don't exactly have me at a disadvantage right now."

_"I've tried to make this as painless as possible on you. If you had allowed it, you would have been on Coruscant and in my custody without conflict or bloodshed. You can end this now, Shae. If you do not, I cannot promise that more amicable outcomes will be made available."_

The voice coming at her was heavy with a kind of hatred she hadn't heard before. The man was trying to hide it, trying and failing. "Who are you?" she asked the employer. "What did I do to you to justify all of this?"

_"It's not a matter of punishment, Shae,"_ he said. _"It's a matter of justice. Your time has come and gone. In light of the death you have wrought on these people: Do you understand why?"_

Shae tossed the projector at the wall, breaking it. "All right, enough of that." She nodded to address Zarl again. "I'm gonna need you to accompany me to the cockpit. Your ship can make it to Nar Shaddaa, yeah?"

"Yes," he said through his teeth.

"Good!" she said. "That is good. So, why don't you lead the way and we'll get me somewhere a little friendlier—" She noticed Zarl's hand make some kind of familiar movement. "What did you just do?"

"I don't know what you mean."

She looked a little closer. The glove the man was wearing was similar to the one from her Mando armor set. She used hers to control her jetpack; she could only guess what Zarl's was used for. "I'm going to repeat myself, even though I'm not a fan of it." She let Zarl hear the power pack in her blaster ring to life. "What. Did. You. _Do?_ "

Zarl shrugged. "Recalled my men," he said with sickening confidence. "They'll be here in a few seconds." He held up a hand. "And the whole hostage thing won't work. They'll have locked out the controls to the ship by now, just like the transport captain and copilot did. You'll be stuck. Again.

"The difference being: this time your opponent is armed." Zarl laughed. "You can kill me, but you won't be escaping. You're done, Mandalorian."

Shae groaned, rolled her eyes. She was really hoping it wouldn't come to this. _Really_ hoping. She didn't want to do everything Plan B entailed while wearing a gaudy dress that barely fit. "Let me ask you something, Mister Confidence," she said. "Did your merc buddies do an explosives sweep on that transport before coming aboard?"

The mirth drained out of Zarl's face. It was almost instant.

"That's what I thought." Shae stuck her arm through one of the medical bed's restraints. "You _really_ should have." She winked at the man, reached over to her data-gauntlet.

And pressed the detonator—


	7. The Last Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"As long as I'm fighting, I'm not dying. And I'm not done fighting just yet."_
> 
> -Mara Jade Skywalker (25 ABY)

Three hundred years ago, this particular hallway in the Starwell Hotel of Taris would've have hastened the upper crust of the planet's government and various entertainment industries from a private docking pad on the 115th floor and into a marvelous web of staterooms, cafes, and theaters. The hallway had been designed to build suspense, gradually enlarging itself every ten meters, becoming more elegant and complex with breathtaking works of local art flanking and looming low over any potential patrons who happened to pass through.

It was also designed with a mind for acoustics; to carry sound from the ballrooms, where orchestral music and lavish operas could be heard and felt until just after dinner service. At the center of the building, it branched off into the four cardinal directions, where a spiral staircase of gilded marble spanned the entirety of the structure, a rarity in late Tarisian architecture, implemented more for aesthetics and novelty rather than utility.

At the top of this staircase: an enormous ballroom, dubbed the "Star Lounge," domed with glass that sat upon pendentives carved into the likeness of Taris's revered founders. Here, more music could be heard, in addition to the sounds of the city driving on at all hours of the night, thanks to the room's wide doorways and immense balconies that sat well above the surrounding structures and skylanes. It was a place where one could look down upon the bustling hive that Taris had become and marvel at its _quaintness_ from on high.

It must be pointed out that only three aliens had ever been allowed in the Sky Lounge after its initial construction: a trio of Twi'lek women who sang backup vocals for Lan Wager and the Nos Stromo Band. Even then, a steady stream of complaints had been filed with the management throughout the performance. It was for reasons such as this, and many more, that while many non-human races were filled with a swell of emotions upon hearing of the planet's destruction, pity was not among them.

The day Darth Malak ordered the bombardment of Taris from orbit, the buildings immediately surrounding the Starwell were the first to be struck, collapsing perfectly into their own foundations as fire rained heavy from the skies. The mountain of wreckage they created heaved and melted and cooled and pressed in around the Starwell's base until the lobby and lower floors had been completely crushed inwards, destroying and burying an enormous bronze statue that was said to have been cast on Corellia when the Old Republic had first been founded.

For five years, the Starwell Hotel of Taris stood in defiance of Malak's works, the Sky Lounge choked with the ashes and smoke of a decimated civilization, until the lower floors finally lost their fight, bringing the skyscraper down into the wreckage until that private docking pad on the 115th floor sat at ground level with the rest of the debris.

The Starwell is dark now, its self-proclaimed elegance buried beneath layers of ash. Its hallways slant at an unnatural angle, the artworks left behind during the evacuation have either been hauled away by scavengers or irreparably vandalized, and the theaters are silent but for the complaints of monsters that roam the surface.

Three hundred years ago, the Starwell Hotel broke the skyline of Taris, built with the intent to house a subculture of excess and exuberance. Little did the architects of this fallen wonder know: they were erecting a kilometer high monument to futility, with its sole purpose being to play host for Shae Vizla's last stand.

* * *

In the dining hall, there were still eating utensils sitting upon the tables, no longer arranged; a carving station that had rolled into the far corner of the room; short stacks of fine plates and dishes monogrammed with the hotel's logo sat on shelves, kept in place gravity and luck. The building's slant had send most of light furniture into the walls, and the heavy curtains nearby had long since unraveled themselves and fallen into mildewed piles of thread upon the tile floor.

Shae counted the tiles as she walked to the window.

She went prone near one of the shattered windows, peering out into the ruins, looking for any sign of movement. It had been three hours since she'd arrived at the Starwell, and she knew it was only a matter of time now before her pursuers decided to follow her trail. It would be daylight soon, assuming Taris had something resembling an average day/night cycle. If she were in their position, she wouldn't want her mark to have the advantage of clear vision.

Right now, they had the numbers, the firepower, and the advantage of cover in the dark. Shae was a Mandalorian, but she didn't have night vision beyond the scope of her unwieldy rifle. It wouldn't do her much good in a close quarters fight, in any case. Like the fight she was about to initiate.

Shae made a list of the number of holodrama actors and actresses she could recall from memory.

Everything was set. She had a plan and the energy to carry it out. All that was left to do was wait for the Jedi and his crew to show themselves and wander into the Starwell. She would have to act as a guide, after that; the hotel was a maze of hallways and connected staterooms and dining rooms and theaters. They would likely get lost, otherwise.

And she couldn't have that.

Shae started a game of pazaak in her head.

For years, she had entertained the thought of killing a Jedi, though the people who wouldn't report or arrest her for entertaining such thoughts were convinced that it couldn't be done. _Impossible_ , they said. _Remember Revan? Remember Malak? The Republic threw everything it had against them. Nothing. Those two had to kill each other off, in the end. Nothing else could touch them._

During one of her casual bouts of research on the matter, she had stumbled across a batch of recordings made by a man named Jaq Rand—later known as 'Atton'—who fought along side Revan and Malak during the Jedi Civil War. Most of the man's exploits were either classified or just plain non-existent, but the recordings detailed his time as a Hunter: someone who tracked down, subdued, and sometimes killed Jedi Knights, Masters, and Padawans alike. There were many Hunters serving under Revan during the war, but Jaq was top tier.

His main defense against the Jedi, he explained through he recordings, was to throw up mental barriers:

_During a fight, a Jedi will use your own mind against you. With that direct line, they can read your emotions, your intent, your secrets—your weakness. This is why you play pazaak in your head, count your steps, count the stars, make lists, recite a song or poem backwards and forwards. Keep your mind busy, and they can't get in. You've stripped them of their main weapon._ _No, not their lightsaber._

_You've diminished their ability to use the Force, and tell me, what's a Jedi without the Force? They rely on it more than they could possibly know. Watch them hold their lightsaber. Watch the uncertainty and fear take root._

_Without the Force, you'll see nothing more than a man, a woman—a child._

_And you will live for those moments._

Shae went through the checklist for getting the _Taylir IV_ ready to fly offworld. Down below, her pursuers passed in front of the landing pad entrance to the Starwell, but didn't stray from their path. They looked to be heading to an adjacent building, which made her wonder if Jaq Rand's technique was working.

She toggled the sniper rifle's night vision and took aim at the group. There were about a dozen men and women that she could make out, with the Jedi walking near the front alongside someone familiar...

"Good old, Zarl," she whispered, adjusting the sights to bring them into focus. As much as she wanted to put a bolt through Zarl, she needed him alive to keep the group together. His fellow mercs were following his orders, and if he bit the dust, they would likely scatter or retreat. That would complicate things, and she didn't want to draw this out any longer. She tied her red hair back into a tight ponytail and lowered herself onto the rifle.

Just as the group moved beyond the landing pad, she lined up the crosshairs over one of the mercs on their left flank. She exhaled, pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked up a fair amount of dust as it vented heat and the sound was loud enough to cause some alarm, even if the group wasn't sure what had just happened. Shae didn't stay in position long enough to see if her shot had landed. They had heard and seen her, now it was time to change spots.

"Take cover!" Zarl roared. "Put some fire on that building!"

The dining room windows burst inward against a wave of crimson light. The angled blaster bolts tore into the ceiling and torrents of pulverized ferrocrete and bits of crystal chandeliers rained down upon Shae. They had definitely seen her, but she had to be sure they'd follow her in. Keeping her arms over her head to block the falling debris, she sprinted across the room and into the hallway. She made a left at the first stateroom and dropped into a slide that brought her to the window nearest a grand sized bed.

She had already wiped away the dust and propped the window open a few centimeters to allow for the rifle barrel and a clean line of sight. From her new position, she could see that the mercs were still firing into a spot ten meters to her left and they had taken up cover around a man lying lifeless on the ground. It was a good start. She took aim again, this time picking a target of convenience.

She caressed the trigger, lined up the shot, exhaled.

This time she stuck around long enough to see a woman near the edge of the group recoil and fall limp to the ground. Shae could hear Zarl shouting in anger at no one in particular before the group's blaster fire angled into her stateroom, destroying three hundred years' worth of preserved elegance. She moved back into the hallway, sniper rifle slung to her back, and kicked off her shoes against the wall. If Zarl and his mercs followed her inside—which, she was certain they would—she needed to move about quietly.

Some of the staterooms spanned several floors, with their own personal staircases to connect them. Shae used these to get back down to the 115th floor in lieu of the main stairwell at the center of the building, for fear of what she might attract. At the main hallway that connected the landing pad to the rest of the floor, she took cover behind a corner where the hallway widened by a meter on either end.

Moonlight poured into the entrance of the Starwell, which, at that distance, looked about the size of a pinhole. She took aim with her rifle and adjusted the sight, guessing that the Jedi would be the first to show his face.

She was right. The man's robes billowed wide around his feet as he entered. He kept his head down and his hood pulled low, not even bothering to look around.

Shae started counting all the times Cander had blown their money at the tracks. That would last her a while.

She took aim, keeping her mind on everything _except_ her plan. The crosshairs lined up over the Jedi's head. She could hear Zarl's mercs falling in close behind. This was it.

She wouldn't have another chance.

She pulled the trigger. Before she could even compress it entirely, the Jedi's lightsaber ignited with a hiss/crack that the acoustically-sound hallway carried back to her without effort. The green saber went vertical and blocked Shae's blaster bolt before it could strike home, sending it ricocheting up into the ceiling.

He had blocked it, without effort.

_Perfect._

She lined up another shot, just above the Jedi where she had affixed one of her blaster pistol's spare power packs to the wall. Just as her first shot was ricocheting into the ceiling, her second shot struck the power pack dead in the center. The pack exploded, releasing enough energy to throw the Jedi onto his back and send the rest of the mercs into a fit of panic as superheated plasma showered their bodies.

Half the group found their clothes on fire, the Jedi included. Shae took off at a sprint, moving deeper into the building just as the Jedi was recovering, tearing off his burning robes with a forceful tug.

Shae continued the pazaak game in her head, countering her opponent with a Minus Three card that brought her score back down to twenty. Her opponent went bust. The first game was hers. "Pure pazaak," she said.

Halfway to the marble stairwell, she took cover again behind an overturned couch and took aim. The Jedi had finished putting out Zarl's crew and was now moving in her direction with terrifying speed, his lightsaber dragging a burning scar across the wall as he ran.

Shae started another game, drawing a Ten card on the first draw. It would've been a nice start if her sidedeck wasn't all blue and positive. She couldn't afford to draw another one like that.

By now, the mercs were giving chase behind the Jedi, albeit at a much slower gait. They were roaring against pure adrenaline at the top of their lungs, their weapons up and ready to fire. The Jedi was already halfway down the hall now. Another few seconds and he'd be right on top of her. She took a few panic shots, not aiming at anything in particular. The Jedi brushed them aside with ease, barely even slowing. She let a fabricated sense of fear reach her mind, increasing her breathing and her heart rate to give it some credence, and fired her rifle some more. Once again, not one of the bolts connected.

"Damn!" Shae screamed, letting exhaustion seep into her voice. She took off down an adjoining hallway, leaping over fallen statues and cutting her feet all to hell on shards of marble. From this hallway, there was only one way to go, and that was through a series of staterooms that zigzagged across the northeastern quarter of the floor. All of the other connecting hallways were 'suspiciously' clogged with furniture and debris.

She knew the path by heart. Her life depended on it, after all. At the dresser, she went left. At the gilded mirror, another left. Follow the dark molding in the next room around to the double doors. Pass the broken bed on three legs and jump through the refresher into the next adjoining room. Cross that and exit into the next hallway.

It was easy enough, after all was said and done. All of the other doors and closets were 'conveniently' closed and locked.

She had to be in the next position before her pursuers got a visual on her again.

"Shae!" came Zarl's voice echoing through the staterooms. "Give up, Shae!"

Shae stopped running and padded quietly to the end of the hallway. She was standing only a few feet from the marble stairwell at the center of the building. There was a narrow door built into the wall at the northwest corner, where the northern and western hallways met at the center. Turning the handle gently, she propped the door open and stood on the threshold. Behind her was an employee passageway that ran the length of the 115th floor, so that waiters and maids could go from a dining hall to a stateroom to a theater without inconveniencing the patrons in the halls.

On the wall just outside the door was a series of ropes she had fashioned out of curtain drawstrings. Four, to be exact, and they all led off into the four main hallways.

Shae counted the number of ways she would've killed the Jedi who murdered her parents.

From the eastern hallway, the Jedi appeared, still holding his lightsaber out to his side. Shae let a false sense of fear and regret into her mind. She thought of words like "surrender" and "please" and "stop." The Jedi slowed to a stop at the marble stairwell. He was breathing heavily, but not out of exhaustion. For being who he was, Shae didn't think she'd seen someone so visibly angry.

"Two more lay dead outside, Shae," said the Jedi, taking casual strides forward. "You asked me for justification for all of this. Now, do you understand why?"

"I never did anything to you," she said with a calculated whimper. "I just want to be left alone."

"Some people are born unto trouble. You cannot change your fate, just as surely as you cannot change the stars. This has to end with you."

"Why don't you just tell me why? Stop speaking in riddles," she pleaded. "Why do you get to kill someone in cold blood and still call yourself a Jedi?"

Sadness replaced anger on the Jedi's face. He closed his eyes for a long moment. "We all have to give up a part of ourselves for the greater good. Civilization thrives on sacrifice."

"More riddles." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

Zarl and his group of mercenaries appeared in the hallway and sprinted towards the stairwell, making all kinds of loud noises that carried all throughout the building. "There she is!" he shouted. "What are you doing, Jedi! Kill her!" His voice crashed away through the marble stairwell—down into the darkness.

Shae grinned and cleared her mind, letting the Jedi in on what exactly he had just walked into.

"No..." The Jedi's face went pale, like a ghost there in the darkness.

"You're gonna die here, anyway." Shae pulled the four ropes, unleashing a coordinated avalanche of furniture that spilled out of nearby staterooms and blocked the four hallways leading away from the stairwell. Given a couple minutes, the mercs would be able to move everything out of the way and escape with relative ease.

But they wouldn't have that long.

Terrible roars erupted from the darkness at the bottom of the stairwell, and their came a rumbling sound like a Corellian rocket tram that shook the walls and floors. The Jedi was shouting at his group to get out, to flee—to just _run_ , anywhere else but here.

Shae waited as long as she could, and was able to make out a pale, muscle-bound creature with a mouthful of knife-like teeth leap out of the stairwell and land on the nearest merc. The creature screamed with a primal bloodlust that scattered the rest of Shae's pursuers, as it tore apart and devoured the flailing merc limb by limb. Zarl and a few others opened fire at the wave of monsters emerging from the depths, while the rest of the group tried to frantically push the tangle of furniture out of the way.

The Jedi cut down the first pack of creatures as they charged the mercs, but then another dozen more leapt up over the railing. He couldn't stop them all. He briefly looked at Shae, likely wondering if he should abandon his group to exact his justice.

"They're getting through!" Zarl unloaded an entire power pack at the stairwell, driving a few of the monsters back, but unable to kill a single one. "Jedi, finish it!" He was pointing at Shae now, the crimson light of the blasterfire accentuating his rage. "Finish it—!"

One of the creatures fell upon him. With feral claws digging deep into his chest, he screamed and wrestled with his attacker until, with one quick motion, his head was torn away from his body. The rest was dragged back into the stairwell.

Green light moved across the walls in rapid motions as the Jedi felled more of the beasts. As the cries around him grew quieter, he whirled on Shae. She closed the door and moved her makeshift barricade into place in front of it. The Jedi would be able to cut or push through if he had a minute or two, but, again, she really didn't think he had that long.

Shae took off down the employee passageway, trailing bloody footprint behind her—the screams and blasterfire of a lost battle drowning out her laughter.


	8. Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Plans are fragile things and life often dashes expectations to the ground."_
> 
> -Kreia (3,951 BBY)

For the second time in history, the fate of the Old Republic was determined in the skies above Taris.

Two distinct parties, three hundred years apart, participated in the ruinous task of preventing some unknowable and undesirable end—and, in doing so, made those fates manifest. Darth Malak and his Sith Empire were the first, destroying the _Endar Spire_ in orbit to prevent Jedi Knight Bastila Shan from influencing the war he had burned half the galaxy to win. Bringing down that ship, and attempting to kill all those aboard, had set into motion a series of events that culminated in his demise aboard the Star Forge, bringing an end to the crusade he, Revan, and Meetra Surik had started all those years ago.

The Jedi and Zarl's mercenaries were the second, by attempting to kidnap, imprison, or, if necessary, kill the Mandalorian bounty hunter, Shae Vizla. A failed operation that, over the course of the next fourteen years, would escalate Great Galactic War to a fever pitch and conclude with the Sacking of Coruscant and the massacre of the Jedi Order. An age of darkness would return to the galaxy.

And this is how it began:

* * *

Shae never dreamed of her parents. Not for years. But the adrenaline those visceral images coaxed into her veins kept her awake and alert while an unnecessarily high concentration of null gas was pumped into the passenger cabin of her new employer's transport. You feel the dizziness before you can smell it, and when you notice the taste of citrus on your tongue, you have only seconds before you pass out.

She was tasting something like a Roonan lemon by then, but she had practiced for this. As a bounty hunter, she really didn't know what the galaxy was capable of throwing at her, so she braced for almost every eventuality short of a supernova. Learning to recognize null gas had been on that list, and upon realizing how long she'd been breathing it, the only thing she could do was exhale completely—and wait.

This, of course, was a tad difficult.

"Is she out, Kelsai?" Rennat asked through a gas mask.

"Yeah, she's out," Kelsai replied. "There's a chance she might just be lucid right now, but give it another minute and she won't wake up until our friends get her back to Coruscant."

Coruscant? Shae wondered. What happened to Tattooine? Or their business arrangement, for that matter. Was this all because she wouldn't let them check her pistols? No, even then, Coruscant still wouldn't make much sense. Perhaps she disrupted the wrong senator's commute while she was back there chasing Thrask across half of Level 223. That wouldn't have surprise her as much.

Right now, she just _really_ wanted to breathe.

Rennat was asking, "Have we made contact with our mystery employer yet?"

"No, but he's not late. We just began our first orbit around Taris and the captain said we're not expecting anyone for another few minutes or so."

He groaned. "I just want to get this woman off the ship as soon as possible. I poked around in her equipment trunk before I spaced it—"

_WHAT!_

Shae felt herself take in a small breath in shock, and her head swam with it. She had thousands of credits' worth of equipment in that trunk! Armor, tech, weapons, ammo, fuel, credentials... Her _jetpack_... and now it was floating somewhere in the space between Nar Shaddaa and Taris. She couldn't stand it when people messed with her livelihood, and this was tantamount to severing her trigger finger.

She could feel anger building, or something closer to going blood simple. The sensation she had gotten when she pushed Kambern Polis out of the window in Jarvin Trell's place of business.

"Come on, let's get some binders on her."

"Got them right here," said Kelsai. "You're going to take those, right?" Shae assumed she was talking about her blaster pistols.

Rennat cursed. "Nearly forgot. She wouldn't let me take them to the hold. It was either let her bring them aboard or watch her walk away."

"Whatever, just hand them to me."

Rennat hunched over and unhooked Shae's utility belt. He had a bit of trouble with it, so he didn't notice when Shae smoothly unholstered one of her pistols. "I know better than to question the captain, but that mystery employer better be paying us real kriffing good for this."

Shae pressed the pistol up against Rennat's gas mask. "He better," she managed to say, and put a bolt through the man's head. Kelsai screamed. Without missing a beat, Shae stood, gripped Kelsai by her dress and ripped off her gas mask. Once it was on her own face, she took in a big, relaxing breath that nearly made her pass out. Kelsai, meanwhile, seemed to wake up to the fact she was breathing in the null gas and leapt at Shae, trying to retrieve her mask in a fit of shock and panic.

"Hey, calm down!" Shae demanded, trying to keep the woman at arm's length. "Would you ju—Stop! Cut it out!" The woman kept flailing and reaching for the mask until Shae finally had to get her in a choke hold. "If you panic, you're just gonna make it worse. Do you taste lemons yet?"

Kelsai nodded. "You killed him..."

"Yeah, I was there." Shae aimed a pistol at the cockpit. "You tell those boys to open up, okay? The three of you are taking me back to Nar Shaddaa."

"You killed him..."

"Uh-huh. Cockpit. Open. _Now._ " Shae turned the pistol on the woman. "Faster would be better. You're about to pass out from the gas." She guided Kelsai over to the cockpit. "Is there a secret knock or something?"

"Yeah," Kelsai replied.

"Do it." The woman went to knock, but Shae stopped her. "If there's a warning knock that I'm not privy to and I go in there to find them armed and ready for me, I'm going to let you pass out and then I'm gonna space you."

The woman sagged a bit in her arms.

"Woah, now. I was kidding! Kidding... but seriously, get the kriffing door open."

Kelsai knocked three times, paused, knocked four times, paused, and knocked once more. The door popped open.

The captain and copilot were both wearing gas masks, their attention focused on their controls. "Good timing," said the captain. "I think Zarl and his bunch just..." And then he turned around.

"Are you overfond of this girl?" Shae asked, moving aside so the captain and copilot could see Rennat's body in the aisle. "Because that'll be a problem for you two if you don't take me back to Nar Shaddaa. I've decided this working relationship isn't in my best interests."

"Look," said the captain, reaching out for Kelsai. "Just calm down."

"I'm extremely calm. The gas you guys pumped into the cabin made sure of that."

"We're only doing what we were paid to do," the copilot insisted. "We're unarmed. We can talk this out."

"I'm sure you don't have to worry about weapons when you drug anyone who steps onto your ship." Shae pushed the barrel of her pistol up against Kelsai's temple. "You heard me, right? Take me to Nar Shaddaa or I start shooting indiscriminately."

The captain nodded. "Okay, we'll take you. Just be careful with that thing." He turned to his copilot. "Calculate the jump to lightspeed and I'll break us out of orbit."

"Aye, Captain."

The two started flipping switches and dialing in coordinates. The captain made an odd tapping motion that Shae barely noticed, and the copilot nodded a bit too perceptively.

"What was that?" Shae asked. The crew didn't respond. "I asked you—" Suddenly, the entire navigation board went dark and she could hear the engines and hyperdrive cycle through an emergency shutdown. "What did you do!"

The captain ever so casually stood and turned on Shae with a wry and confident grin. "We have just locked out the controls, navigation, and communications equipment. You're effectively stuck out here, miss, and we're the only two people on the Rim who can power it back up." He pointed at Shae. "Now, you have two options: The first is that you release Kelsai, give her back her mask, and pass out like a good girl. Our friends will get you to Coruscant and you'll have a nice chat with our employer.

"Your second option is—"

Shae shot him twice in the gut and once in the head. The captain tipped back onto the navigation console and slumped face-first onto his chair. She turned the gun on the copilot. "I feel like you two didn't hear me. Take me to Nar Shaddaa or I start shooting indiscriminately." She caught herself. " _Continue_ shooting indiscriminately is what I meant."

The copilot, a less courageous man, tossed his hands up in surrender.

"Nod if you heard me," Shae demanded. The copilot nodded. "Good! Unlock the console."

"The captain had the code."

Shae leaned forward. "What?"

"The captain had the unlock code. You just killed him."

"One person had the unlock code for this ship? Just one?"

"Yes."

"I feel like you're lying to me. Possibly even stalling."

"He is lying..." Kelsai groaned, starting to pass under the effects of the gas. "Both... have code..."

"Kelsai!" the copilot snapped.

"You're gonna... gonna get us ki..."

"Shut up!" he shouted, finding his courage. He remembered the gun and put his hands up again, but Shae read defiance in his gaze. "We're not going anywhere. Like the captain said, surrender yourself and this will end. Otherwise, we're going to be here awhile."

Shae sighed. "The absolute nerve..."

Outside the front viewport, a ship dropped out of hyperspace and aimed its heading in their direction. Shae thought back. "That's the ship Rennat mentioned. The 'friends' the captain was talking about."

"So?" asked the copilot. "That's a shipful of mercs right there, bounty hunter. If you don't surrender here, they're not going to want to take you alive. They get paid either way."

"Another ship."

"So?" the copilot repeated.

"Which means I don't need yours," she said evenly. The copilot connected the dots, to his horror. "Which means I don't need you." She shot him through the heart, watched the man's shock trend toward indifference, and he slumped over onto the floor.

By then, Kelsai had finished passing out and slipped through Shae's grasp, joining the captain and copilot on the floor.

"This has just not been my day," Shae said into the empty ship.

* * *

By the time Shae had figured out how to switch off the null gas and recycle the air, the _Tracer_ -class corvette was making its first pass at the transport, likely sending messages through the deactivated comm. She removed her gas mask and took a cursory sniff of the air. Some residual traces of the gas might have still been in the air, but not enough to cause unconsciousness.

There was only one way out of the Taris system and it was aboard the corvette. She didn't think there would be a simple way to sneak aboard, and she _definitely_ didn't want to be taken in as a prisoner.

Perhaps as a sole survivor, though...

Switching places with Kelsai was the only agreeable idea that came to mind, but the entire plan hinged upon these new arrivals—these apparent _mercs—_ not recognizing Kelsai on sight. If they knew her, the plan was an immediate bust. If they didn't, she might be able to ride with them all the way to Coruscant and sneak away at the first opportunity. Better yet: she might even be able to convince them to drop her off somewhere along the way.

The odds of success weren't great, but it was the only short-notice plan that didn't ensure failure.

She started by switching clothes with the unconscious woman. Kelsai's dress was gaudy, a few centimeters too long, and understandably wet around the neck and underarms. Shae tried to get used to appearing comfortable, but in truth she hadn't so much as touched a dress since she was a teenager. Kelsai looked a little scrawny in Shae's clothes; her arms were a little too short for the sleeves and her legs were too long for the pants. Shae hooked her utility belt around Kelsai's waist and hoped no one would look too closely.

By the time the corvette made a second pass, Shae was putting the finishing touches on her hair, tying it back into a bun to make it look more formal. Conversely, she tussled Kelsai's to make it look more unkempt.

Outside, the corvette used its signal lamp to flash the blink code message _HELP REQUIRED?_ into the cabin. She had to respond; she couldn't give them the impression things weren't under control or else they might keep their distance.

Using her data-gauntlet, she signaled back the words _YEZ. HELP_ , intentionally flubbing the code to make herself seem more inexperienced. Would someone would the look of a stewardess know more than a few emergency words in blink code? And would she know them well?

It seemed to be working so far. The important thing now was looking the part of a young woman possessed of a more fragile constitution who had just watched her fellow crewmembers get vaped. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for Kelsai...

Then, she became Kelsai.

_The only real difference between the truth and a lie is whether or not you, as the liar, believe it yourself._

Affecting hysterics, she pressed herself up against the glass of the airlock, sobbing and panting and secretly hoping that these mercs wouldn't do a detailed scan of the transport—or else they might find elements of her backup plan: the four remote thermal detonators she had hidden around the hatch.

* * *

Shae had taken into account that her disguise might not have held up the entire trip, and she had even entertained the thought that they'd recognize her immediately and take her aboard. At which point: explosives. What she hadn't really expected was being made while aboard the corvette, before they had even detached the umbilical from the transport. Whoever had been on the other end of Zarl's holocall had really done her in.

A very unfortunate turn of events. Then again, it seemed to fit with the theme of the day.

And just to add onto it—

"What. Did. You. _Do?_ " Shae demanded.

Zarl shrugged. "Recalled my men. They'll be here in a few seconds." He held up a hand. "And the whole hostage thing won't work. They'll have locked out the controls by now, just like the transport captain and copilot did. You'll be stuck. Again."

She really wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smirk off the man's face... and she had the right amount of explosives to pull it off.

"You can kill me, but you won't be escaping. You're done, Mandalorian."

"Let me ask you something, Mister Confidence," she said. "Did your merc buddies do an explosives sweep on that transport before coming aboard?"

The color drained out of Zarl's face. Shae wished she had a camera on her.

"That's what I thought." She pushed her arm through one of Kelsai's restraints. "You _really_ should have." And, throwing the man a sly wink, she toggled the detonator on her gauntlet.

What happened next wasn't as instant as she thought it was going to be.

Shae heard the groaning of the corvette's hull first, deep like the roar of a krayt dragon. Then came an increase in pressure that popped her ears and pressed in around her skull. Zarl was moving around the medical bed to stop her, but everything after that was sound and fury.

The cabin decompressed, violently ripping Zarl off his feet midstride and pulling him out of the medical bay. He tried out get a grip on the threshold, but one failed attempt later, he was gone. Malkis's gunshot body tumbled out after him. Shae was swept off her feet, as well, with only a precarious hold on the medical bed restraints to keep her from following Zarl into vacuum. Lights flashed and alarm klaxons could be heard faintly against the storm.

Unless the corvette had some kind of different setup, and emergency air shield would be going up around the new breach in seconds. Shae just hoped there would still be enough oxygen left over afterward.

The flashing lights went steady and the decompression stopped. She fell to the floor, her arm still tangled in the restraints and more than a little friction burned. Working quickly, she removed the restraints around Kelsai and retrieved her utility belt. She had to tighten the belt extra tight over her hips for want of belt loops on the dress.

With a pistol drawn, Shae carefully stepped out into the first corridor, hoping she could guess the layout of the corvette well enough to find the cockpit. The first step was going back up the stairs...

She gasped. Zarl unsteadily pulled himself onto his feet at the top of the stairs, a grappling wire extending from his wrist to the railing. He seemed dazed at first, but moved like nothing had happened when Shae took a shot at him.

"That was a dirty trick, Shae," Zarl groaned from around the corner. "I don't think my friends on the other ship made it down the umbilical in time. That means I'm gonna have to torture you before I kill you." He let out a slightly unhinged laugh. "And it's a _long_ ride back to Coruscant, girl."

"Sir!" A voice emerged from deeper into the ship. "Sir, are you all right!"

"The Mandalorian spaced the away team. Get a couple grenades down this stairway!"

The grenades were already bouncing down the stairs before he finished the order. Shae sprinted past the medical bay and turned right down the next corridor. The concussion followed her and knocked her against the wall. She tasted blood.

"Get after her!" Zarl bellowed.

Shae had no choice but to press on and find cover. The escape pods were in the next room over, but taking one of those might be akin to a death sentence. There was nothing on Taris but ruins and pollution, and she'd likely be killed by the wildlife just before she starved to death. The planet was dead, and the chances of finding help were nonexistent.

That notion seemed to vanish when another set of concussion grenades came rolling into the room. There was nothing for it. She had to get out.

She tumbled into one of the escape pods and pulled the hatch closed. Her fingers quickly played along the small console and, after fixing the approach vector, she was rocketing across the divide between the corvette and Taris. Clumsily, she strapped herself into the crash seat, feeling the gees increasing on her body. Outside her small window, a luminous blue world began filling her view.

* * *

The escape pod had aimed for the most appropriate surface to ditch upon, and this unfortunately meant a sheer frictionless platform jutting out of the rubble. The skyscrapers of Taris had once rivaled those of Coruscant in terms of sheer scale, and were connected together at various levels by wide durasteel platforms used for pedestrian traffic. Shae presently found herself exiting the escape pod overlooking the edge of one of these platforms, with only a few centimeters between the hatch and a sheer drop into wreckage.

Shae scoured the pod to salvage any supplies. There wasn't much. Some rations had been stuffed into the main compartment, though someone had gotten into them; a few spare sets of clothes, which would be a welcome respite from her dress; and, typical of a merc ship, the components of a sniper rifle and the appropriate ammo. She stuffed all of this into a backpack that had been stowed with the supplies. On the way out, she discovered a dial for the distress beacon, but decided against it. The mercs were likely to glass the entire area if she switched it on.

It took a few minutes to work up the nerve, but Shae able to skirt the edge of the platform and step onto solid—if not even—ground without much effort. Clear of the pod and the merc ship, she gave herself a moment to catch her breath and figure out what she was going to do.

Taris was a big planet, after all. Ruined though it was, there was still plenty of technology lying around she might be able to use to send out a distress call, preferably one that didn't bring the mercs down on top of her. Better yet: scavengers were known to sweep Taris for abandoned relics and other things that would all but force museums to compete with or outbid the black market. She could talk her way onto one of their ships.

There was a chance she could survive all of this and get home in time to be annoyed by Cander gambling away all her credits. "Yeah," she said into dead silence. "This could work." But even with renewed confidence, she was all but certain she was in for a very long day, and with the sun beginning to set like it was, an equally long night.


	9. All Quiet on Taris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"We'll go to the front—and beyond it, if it'll save the galaxy. Sometimes you have to enter the darkness to save the light."_
> 
> -Alek (3,964 BBY)

It had been a long night, but now dawn was creeping through Taris once more, catching on millions of shattered windows that glittered there in the dust. It reminded Shae of how the sunlight moved over the brilliant waters of Lake Yinta back home. Always changing. Always perpetuating.

Shae had to shield her eyes as she looked back and forth across the landscape, trying to pick out where the Jedi and his hired mercs had parked their ships before beginning their hunt. The hunt that had just ended so badly for all of them. They couldn't have landed too far away. She had only begun noticing their presence a few hours after her crash landing in the escape pod, so even if she couldn't see the ships, they were certainly within walking distance.

She was finally going to get off this world.

Satisfied the ships weren't to the west, she walked across the Sky Lounge of the Starwell Hotel and stepped out onto the eastern balcony. The view was more open here, with fewer buildings to get in the way, but less satisfying. There were passenger speeders and cargo ships jutting out of the rubble like the crags of Ord Mantell. It was a macabre sight that got even worse as the sun climbed higher.

Plenty of broken ships, but no sign of the ones she needed.

She strode back into the Sky Lounge...

Only to find the Jedi standing there, bracing himself against a dining table. His olive skin was crosshatched with wounds from the stairwell creatures and his robes were little more than tatters, soaked through with blood. His face showed exhaustion, defeat—pain. And in his hands: the lightsaber.

"I am the last one standing, Shae." His breathing was labored, blood dripped from his lips. "Now, do you understand why I sought to destroy you?"

Shae unholstered her twin pistols. "I understand... that a lot of this could've been avoided."

A smile attempted to make its way onto the Jedi's lips. "Perhaps," he said. "You must believe me when I say that I never wanted this to happen. It was all that I was trying to avoid." He stood and walked under his own power. "It was all that I was trying to kill you to avoid."

"Why?" Shae didn't give any ground. "Why me? Why do you want me dead? What could I have possibly done!"

"It was never about what you did," he explained calmly. "It was always about what you would do."

"Would you _stop_ talking in riddles." Her grip on her pistols tightened. "A Jedi killed my parents when the Republic invaded Vulta, and all I got in return were riddles about fate, destiny, and the Living Force from the one who cut them down. You can imagine how _sick_ I am of hearing it."

A feeling of dread swept over Shae as the Jedi's look of calm disintegrated. She felt it like a hand was gripping her heart.

"Apocalypse is coming to Coruscant, Shae Vizla," said the Jedi. "I have seen it through the Force. Destruction will rain down from the sky, just as it did over Taris all those years ago. Towers will be set ablaze, millions will die... and the Jedi Order will fall." He wasn't far now. Close enough that she could see the anger in his eyes. "And _you_ , Mandalorian, will be the one to bring it all to bear upon us."

Shae could only laugh. "I have no interest in your war, Jedi," she told him. "I have no interest in which side Mandalore and the rest of the clans support. I was born a Mandalorian, but I hold no allegiance to anyone. The credits are all I care about, and credits are what I have plenty of right now. So, where does that leave your little vision?"

"In motion," came the Jedi's reply. "Do you believe you can stop me? Do you believe you can kill me?"

"I'll tell you what I've told a dozen other marks who thought I wouldn't follow through. Some women are born artists. Some are born queens, some prostitutes. As for me, Jedi—my hand was made for the trigger." Her gaze turned feral. "I was born to kill you."

The Jedi continued walking toward Shae. "Then you must do what you were born to do." He ignited his lightsaber, unsteady on his feet.

"Just give up, Jedi! Just let it go!"

"I will not stop in my mission, Shae. I have broken the Code of the Jedi Order, thus I have no home to return to." He held up a bloodied arm. "I have been attacked by a rakghoul and infected with their plague, and will thus become one unless I am killed with my humanity still intact." He was nearly upon her. "And I have seen what you will do, thus I will try and kill you, even though I haven't the power. I will die defending the Republic."

"Have it your way." Shae fired a shot, but the Jedi brushed it aside.

"Belief, Shae. Belief is what will light the fire in your heart." He deflected another bolt. "Belief in wealth is a trap for the ignorant. Whatever guiding star you finally decide to follow will bring pain and suffering to billions. You tell me to let go, but it is _you_ —"

The Jedi swung to wide and the bolt tore through his chest. He tried to continue walking, but fell to his knees. Looking up from his wound, he would've seen the sun rising behind Shae as she held her weapons in his direction. Something he saw brought terror to his eyes. Fear overcame him, and the Jedi sat trembling as he died. "This, I have seen... This is how it begins..." he lamented. "This... my doing... my failure..." He looked up at Shae, tears streaming down his face. "This... is how the world dies..."

Without a word, Shae pressed the barrel of her gun flush against the Jedi's forehead and fired a single shot. Then she reached over and picked up the Jedi's lightsaber from the ground. She turned it over in her hand, inspecting the markings, it's weight, and stuffed it into her pack.

_After all,_ the hologram of Jaq Rand would say often, _what's a Hunter without their trophies?_


	10. Deceivers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"The rise or fall of a civilization can depend on the decision made in a fragment of a second. There are many seconds in a day."_
> 
> -Vergere (28 ABY)

Shae Vizla had been walking for three days and nights, and had nearly used up all of her rations when he found her.

She was approaching the remains of an old _Hammerhead_ -class battlecruiser, her shoes almost completely worn through, with a thought for finding some supplies and shelter when movement out of the corner of her eye prompted her to draw her weapons. It wasn't a rakghoul.

It was Human.

He stood over two meters tall, wearing a suit of black armor and a cape that billowed out behind him. His skin was pale as ivory, and his eyes... bright and red like flowing magma. There was a lightsaber at his hip, but Shae knew this was no Jedi. He stepped off the wreckage and walked toward Shae, those red eyes unblinking.

"Greetings, Master Hunter," the man said. Every step he took seemed to carry through the earth. "I am unsurprised to find you in good health."

Shae got the distinct feeling her blasters would be useless against this man. Regardless, she kept them level. "Are you here to kill me, too? Because let me just say: I'm beaten, shot, and on the verge of hunger. But I will still make you work for it."

The man grinned. "I don't believe in drawing out such things. If I wanted you dead, we wouldn't be speaking."

Shae inhaled deeply, exhaled. "Good to know." She holstered her weapons. "Then, what's a Sith doing out here in the middle of nowhere?"

He crossed his arms behind his back. "Observing, mostly. Thinking about what could come about from this encounter."

"Encounter?"

"You are Shae Vizla, correct?"

She shouldn't have been so surprised, but it still showed on her face. "Well, on a planet like this, I don't think there's another one to mistake me for. Is there a reason you know my name?"

The man in black cast a quick glance toward the crashed battlecruiser. "I was passing through this sector when I received a communique from Korriban. Apparently, you have a very persistent sibling who discovered you were stepping into a Jedi trap."

Shae laughed. "Cander... You've gotta be kidding me. He contacted the Sith?"

"Our techs were unsure of how he got a signal through secure channels, but he made quite the fuss. As I said, I happened to be in the area and was equally surprised to find that his tale was true. A Jedi was hunting you, and what's more, you emerged victorious."

"You were watching me?" she asked. "Why didn't you help?"

"Because the life of one bounty hunter is insignificant, I'm sorry to say," the man said, his tone darker. "A Sith Lord has more pressing matters. But discovering why a Jedi would break the Code to kill one insignificant bounty hunter is what justified this little detour—and trust me when I say, it was well worth the trip. There is more to you than your file would indicate."

"Thanks... I suppose."

"You single-handedly brought down an entire mercenary unit, all of them ex-military with a generous portion having rotated through Havoc Squad. In addition, you also managed to kill a Jedi Knight in the middle of one of the most unforgiving environments on the Rim. These... are _signs_ , Shae Vizla. Signs that tell me you are destined for more than simple bounty work."

What the man had said was starting to sink in. "Havoc Squad? Jedi?" She shook her head. "I still don't understand why the Republic would want me dead. The Jedi said he was following a vision—or a dream, perhaps."

"Leave it to a Jedi to rationalize his passions as a vision from the Force."

"Why would they...?"

"The Jedi are constantly adrift in their own superfluous logic. Their benevolent tendencies are so quickly swept aside when they encounter something their precious Code can't accommodate or solve. Take the story of Meetra Surik: nearly murdered by her own Masters in the heart of a Jedi Enclave. Fear makes them rabid. They reject it, while the Sith embrace it."

Shae was confused. "Embrace fear?"

"Always," the man insisted. "If you never embrace that which you fear, it will never be conquered." He held up a hand. "But we are not at the academy. You have more than proven yourself worthy to leave this planet alive. The pilot of the merc ship has likely learned of his compatriots' demise, for he has already departed offworld. And I doubt you will want to return home in the remaining Jedi vessel."

Shae nodded understandingly. "That might raise a few eyebrows."

"Very well," he said. "Then you may join me, if you like, and I can return you to Nar Shaddaa."

"Thank you," Shae said, almost disbelieving the offer. "I would appreciated the ride very much, Lord..."

"Malgus," the man in black said simply. "And if, on the way to Nar Shaddaa, I might trouble you with a business proposition, we can consider this favor repaid. Regardless of your answer."

"Business proposition?" She couldn't help but smile. A Sith Lord wanted to hire her. It almost felt _more_ exciting than receiving a contract through the Bounty Brokers Association. "You want to take out a contract on someone? No offense, but I doubt there are many people out there you wouldn't be able to take care of yourself."

Lord Malgus grinned and shook his head. "I wouldn't require your tracking skills as much as I would your other proven talents. It would involve combating a very capable enemy on their homeworld, where we would be at a disadvantage. I would need a warrior such as yourself to eliminate that disadvantage in our favor. Do you understand?"

"We would be fighting the Republic?"

"Quite so."

Shae could feel the bloodlust rising in her chest, throwing red into her vision. Despite herself, she smiled. "I think I might be able to accommodate you, Lord Malgus."

Malgus's booming laugh carried throughout the ruins of the dead world. "Then I will tell you of our campaign on Alderaan, Shae. Come, my ship is nearby."

The Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Malgus, moved through the wreckage and dust of Taris, with the battle weary Shae Vizla at his side, listening intently to his plan to strike at the heart of the Republic. In a few months time, they would arrive at Alderaan and burn House Organa to the ground. In fourteen years, they would stride victoriously through the ruins of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, stepping over the corpses of a hundred fallen Jedi.

But for now: there was only Taris, and a promise.

"You and I, Hunter," said Darth Malgus, "we will create such glorious works together."


End file.
